Armenia: Failing Democracy

Transitions Online carries an article by Lincoln A. Mitchell, an assistant professor at Columbia University, on the state of democracy in Armenia, Georgia and Russia following elections held this year. Mitchell says that “efforts to strengthen democracy are either stagnant or, more worryingly, failing.”

The election in Georgia was clearly the best-run of the three, followed by Armenia and then Russia. However, we must not overlook the similarities between the three cases. These elections shared several important characteristics, which highlight broader trends in the region.

First, they were not competitive. Dmitry Medvedev faced no real opposition in Russia, while few in Armenia or Georgia thought that victory for Serzh Sarkisian or Saakashvili was ever really in doubt. Second, none of these elections saw a clear-cut choice between a democratic and non-democratic candidate. Third, the most substantial irregularities occurred in the pre-election period: various combinations of media bias, intimidation of opposition candidates, and liberal use of state resources on behalf of the eventual winner. The election days themselves were relatively smooth and not marked by rampant irregularities.

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The context of the Armenian election raises a different set of problems for democracy advocates because it was essentially typical for that country. The outcome was never in doubt, the fix was in early, the opposition was not really democratic, and there were few strategic options for internal or foreign democrats. Moreover, by making electoral reforms, the Armenian government was able to avoid a negative election report or any significant negative consequences for staging yet another flawed contest.

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Elections were further complicated in Georgia and Armenia by the initial refusal of the opposition to respect the results. Demonstrators came to the streets of Tbilisi and Yerevan to protest elections which Western observers and multilateral organizations had assessed as largely free and fair. In Armenia, violence was used to disperse the demonstrators, but the final card there has not yet been played.

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The question of what to do about an election where the outcome is not in doubt, choice is limited, democratic institutions are not firmly in place, and it is not so easy to determine who the democrats are, will not go away. Those interested in seeing these countries become more democratic must find a way to either de-emphasize elections in favor of other aspects of democracy assistance such as civil society development, hold governments accountable for bad elections even when the fraud does not change the outcome, or determine a longer-term strategy for supporting democratic development that will not get sidetracked during every election season.