EurasiaNet Civil Society - To Win Votes, Armenian Parties Promise Road Repairs, Cable TV and More

CIVIL SOCIETY

TO WIN VOTES, ARMENIAN PARTIES PROMISE ROAD REPAIRS, CABLE TV AND MORE
Gayane Abrahamyan 4/17/07

With Armenia’s parliamentary election less than a month away, campaign promises have begun to flow, and nowhere do they run more freely than in the depressed industrial and border regions of the country’s north.

With thousands in this area struggling with homelessness and unemployment -- the combined effects of the 1988 Spitak earthquake, war with Azerbaijan and post-Soviet economic decline -- promises of housing, employment and improved living conditions carry particularly heavy weight.

The results can range from the amusing to the scandalous.

In Vanadzor, a town of 120,000 and Armenia’s third largest city, one incumbent parliamentarian has offered residents bathhouse tickets in hopes of ensuring a truly "clean" election.

In Gyumri, capital of the Shirak region, the opposition Orinats Yerkir (Country of Law) Party has promised to install Russian cable television channels in residents’ homes. A Republican Party of Armenia candidate has gone still further -- he plans to install a television tower.

Even the United States-run $235 million Millennium Challenge program has been put into play to secure voters’ sympathies, one local journalist says.

Levon Barseghian, chairman of the Asparez journalists’ club in Gyumri, claims that members of various political parties have promised residents of remote mountain villages that Armenia’s Millennium Challenge program will pay for local road repair and bridge construction if they vote for their respective parties. Roads to the villages are impassable for two months in winter.

"The poor villagers are unaware that the program has already been underway for a year and a half and that the issue will be resolved regardless of the votes given to parties," Barseghian said. "It’s hooliganism, speculating with a US project."

Some Gyumri residents, however, argue that promises about road repairs can work both ways. After voters in the town’s Antarayin district stated on local television that they planned to boycott the elections if a local road was not paved, members of both the Country of Law Party and Republican Party of Armenia started competing to make the repairs, said one resident.

"If they remember us only before the elections, we will make use of it to the greatest extent possible," commented Ruzanna Minasian, who organized the boycott drive. "We will take bribes because our votes will be falsified all the same."

Although political parties by law can spend no more than $160,000 on the campaign, multiple gray areas for party spending exist.

Defining the line between campaign events and government functions is one such area. On April 14, Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian, head of the Republican Party, presided over a housewarming for 12 new apartments in Ijevan, a regional seat in northeastern Armenia. The housewarming has been featured in national and local television reports about the Republican Party’s election campaign.

Housing is a popular topic this campaign season. One Gyumri candidate for Prosperous Armenia, a pro-government party widely associated with an aggressive pre-campaign charity initiative, told EurasiaNet that while he will not offer voters houses, the party could assist with "low-rate mortgages" for new housing, payable within 10 to 20 years.

Republican Party officials, however, maintain that state budget funds paid for the apartments in Ijevan, and deny that the properties are connected with election campaigning.

The local representative of one opposition party disagrees. "The apartments are luxurious presents and are an abuse of power," charged Murad Grigorian, head of the Armenian National Movement’s office in Gyumri. "They have bought apartments with state funds and now say that the presents were given to you by the Republican Party, vote for it and it will give you more presents," he said in reference to a recent Republican Party meeting with voters in Gyumri.

That was how Tamara Galstian, a resident of Gyumri’s Ani neighborhood, interpreted what she describes as an offer by Mayor Vardan Ghukasian to intercede with the local gas company, Tak Dzmer (Warm Winter), on behalf of residents with unpaid bills.

"The mayor used to threaten us before by promising to take our houses as compensation if we don’t pay the debts," claimed Galstian. "Now . . . he insists that Tak Dzmer has no right to demand money from us. He has told me personally to inform him in case anyone dares to bother me about this." Galstian says that she joined the Republican Party out of gratitude.

Mayor Ghukasian’s chief of administration, Artyom Mazmanian, declined to comment on the topic in the mayor’s absence. In late March 2007, Mayor Ghukasian was seriously injured in a highway shooting that left four people dead. [For details, see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Employment promises in this region of widespread joblessness also play a role. On April 3, Energy Minister Armen Movsisian stated that a production line at a regional chemical plant shut down since the 1988 earthquake would soon be reopened with jobs for 370 workers, public television reported.

Most locals took that statement as a campaign pledge, whether intended or not. During the 2003 presidential campaign, they say, President Robert Kocharian also promised the plant would reopen.

"Everybody says they will open workplaces, but none of them says how he is going to do that," commented Artur Sakunts, coordinator of the Helsinki Civil Assembly office in Vanadzor. "When there are no plants or any other large enterprises, those are just groundless promises and people understand it quite well."

The end result for many residents is growing cynicism � a feature of Armenia’s pre-election atmosphere recently noted by observers from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Commented Vanadzor resident Sona Aghajanian: "There is no member of parliament to whom I could point and say that he cares for the people."

Editor�s Note: Gayane Abrahmyan is a reporter for the ArmeniaNow online weekly in Yerevan.

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