May Day in Yerevan marked by opposition rally

Gathering several thousand supporters at most, today’s opposition rally at the manuscript library might have well have fallen short of expectations on the eve of the official start of campaigning for this month’s municipal election in Yerevan, but the day at least passed off without incident. There might have been bus loads of interior troops parked adjacent to the parliament building just in case, but at the meeting itself, policing was better than normal, albeit only by local standards.

Indeed, commented one journalist to me during the following march, they actually did a pretty good job of not only avoiding confrontation, but also clearing the roads later. That’s perhaps one lesson learned after the heavy-handed and often abusive way the police used to act under the previous president, and also indicative of how much the authorities want to avoid any clashes on the streets following last year’s post-election riots which left 10 dead.

For the core group of supporters which turned out to hear Armenia’s first president and now extra-parliamentary opposition leader, Levon Ter-Petrossian, speak about the main issues of the day, that’s all that mattered. Touching upon issues from the socio-economic situation to moves to normalize relations between Armenia and Turkey, Ter-Petrossian again delivered a trade-mark lengthy speech intended for the faithful. To be fair, it made sense to make the rally one intended to motivate.

If Yerevan was about to stage its first election to determine its own mayor in 15 years, that wasn’t dealt with until the end. Unfortunately, despite one diplomat saying that many people would actually like candidates and parties to address pressing issues such as garbage collection and green areas in the capital, Ter-Petrossian instead showed no sign of doing so. Instead, his supporters have already signaled the fact that they view the vote as a vote of confidence in the government.

In addition to accusing the Congress of politicizing the elections, the official propaganda is trying to put the Congress in an uncomfortable position with another ridiculous trick, namely by endowing the mayor only with the lowly authority of garbage collector as it understands the position. First, who said that collecting garbage is not an important job? And secondly, if garbage collecting is the mayor’s only job, why is only a single line dedicated to it in the 60-page long law on Yerevan, whereas the rest is dedicated to politics? If after this explanation opinions are voiced again that the Congress is politicizing the elections, the Congress should only be thanked for it, because by doing so it is trying to prevent the criminalization of the elections.

Fair enough, the Mayor does have other tasks to perform, and many of them are very much affected by the larger situation in the country, and especially corruption and the lack of public engagement and oversight in the decision making process. As today was also not officially part of the campaign by Ter-Petrossian’s Armenian National Congress (ANC), there was probably no need to concentrate on it more anyway. He instead said that will happen when the election campaign period kicks off tomorrow.

Until then, Ter-Petrossian reacted harshly to news that Armenia and Turkey might yet normalize relations in tandem with a process to resolve the conflict with Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh. The position on both issues is in stark contrast with the policies of his own government when in power.

Then again, there are unfortunately few other issues with can appeal to an electorate in a region where ethnicity takes precedence over citizenship, and where xenophobia can actually mobilize the masses. This is the reality of domestic politics — and for the government and opposition parties alike.

In a damning indictment of Armenia’s rapprochement with Turkey, opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosian accused President Serzh Sarkisian on Friday of scuttling U.S. recognition of the Armenian genocide and gaining nothing in return.

[…]

“We are left to conclude, without the slightest exaggeration, that for the sake of prolonging his rule Serzh Sarkisian has literally sold out the genocide,” he said. “His next step will undoubtedly be a sellout of Karabakh, after which he will become the first Armenian to win the Nobel prize.”

On the other hand, as perhaps indication of how media outlets in the region are more politicized and opinionated than objective, Hurriyet quotes AFP reporting that Ter-Petrossian said the opposite. In actual fact, it seems as though the former president is instead careful not to distance himself from past policies, while at the same time implying that the current president has neither the mandate nor legitimacy to do the same.

Armenia’s former president, opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosian said Friday that his party would back reconciliation efforts to mend the country’s ties with Turkey.

Ter-Petrosian was quoted by AFP as telling about 3,500 supporters at a rally in central Yerevan that his Armenian National Congress “is in favor of the soonest settlement of Armenian-Turkish relations and is ready to support all positive steps.”

Meanwhile, in preparation for the municipal vote, today’s opposition rally did at least provide The Caucasian Knot with the opportunity to test the potential of live mobile reporting. Instead of shooting on a professional D-SLR, all photos on this page were shot on a Nokia N82 camera phone. Uploaded to the Internet immediately afterwards, and accompanied by live video streaming, it’s very definitely the way this site will cover the election so keep an eye on Twitter for updates.

A few mistakes were made, and not least reducing the quality of the live video stream to reduce lag along with many other issues to iron out, but more of that later in a separate post for the Frontline Club on the use of mobile technology for real-time reporting in Armenia.

All photos and video © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2009