Armenia: A Coalition Government Amidst Conflict

Nearly one month after Armenia's parliamentary vote, a coalition agreement between the Republican Party of Armenia and Prosperous Armenia Party has sealed a much-anticipated power pact between the country's two largest political parties. The agreement comes amidst what some analysts describe as an attempt by the Republican Party to stamp out election-related violence ahead of next year's presidential elections.

After concluding the June 6 agreement, the two parties also signed a memorandum on cooperation with the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, a member of the former coalition government with 16 seats in the new parliament. The Republican Party and Prosperous Armenia hold 64 and 24 seats, respectively.

Talks with the Armenian Revolutionary Federation about joining the coalition eventually fell apart over the party's refusal to back a joint candidate for president in 2008, party representatives announced at a June 6 press conference.

On June 7, Armenia's newly elected parliament held its first session, with former Parliamentary Speaker Tigran Torosian reelected to his post. The Heritage Party and the Country of Law Party, the only two opposition parties present in parliament, have declined to take their seats until the outcome of a case before the Constitutional Court challenging the official election results.

Meanwhile, an outbreak of violence in Armenia's second largest city, Gyumri, has raised questions about the new government's likely response. Although such post-election incidents are relatively common in Armenia, police this time are taking strong steps to respond.

Gyumri is renowned among Armenians for what many term "Sicilian-style" street violence. Some residents, who decline to be named, lay blame for the violence on the town's mayor, Vardan Ghukasian, a senior member of the Republican Party who was the target of a highway shooting in early April that left three people dead.

Participants in the clashes have never been prosecuted or sentenced. That situation now looks likely to change with a May 20 shooting in downtown Gyumrii between the sons of Mayor Ghukasian and of Prosperous Armenia Party Gyumri regional office coordinator Artashes Sarkisian.

Reasons for the shoot-out are unknown. Some locals put the brawl down to an attempt to settle scores between the Republican Party of Armenia and Prosperous Armenia, a popular speculation among voters also during the parliamentary campaign. Other residents put it down to a criminal brawl; both Ghukasian and Sarkisian are thought to own many if not most of the town's businesses.

For several days following the shooting, masked officers from the prosecutor's special detachment squad searched the apartments of Mayor Ghukasian and Prosperous Armenia Party coordinator Sarkisian, as well as those of Sarkisian's sons and Ghukasian's brother. Restaurants associated with both men were also searched. Seventy people were brought in for questioning.

Some observers believe that the show of force indicates that Republican Party head Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian, fresh from victory at the May 12 parliamentary polls, wants an end to the sporadic violence that hit some small towns in the run-up to the vote.

Independent political analyst Nikolai Mikayelian argues that Ghukasian's track record is now being considered "in the higher echelons" of the Republican Party. Mikayelian believes that if Ghukasian's son is prosecuted for the shooting, the party will have signaled that they can dispense with the Gyumri mayor's support. If he is not prosecuted, Ghukasian will be expected to deliver votes for Prime Minister Sarkisian's expected 2008 presidential bid, he projected.

Both Ghukasian and Prosperous Armenia Party coordinator Sarkisian have stated that their sons will turn themselves into the police and "serve the sentence they deserve." Police are still searching for both individuals.

Observer Levon Barseghian, chairman of the Asparez journalists' club in Gyumri, contends, though, that the police action is a "muscle show" that won't lead to any results. Concern has also been raised by the case of one opposition candidate in the nearby town of Alaverdi whose apartment caught fire after she filed complaints about election code violations, reportedly related to campaign violence in the town.

In Gyumri, many locals believe that the mayor is already taking out an insurance policy for his political future. In a May 24 interview with Shant TV, Ghukasian qualified the police scrutiny of his son as improper. "The [April 2007] assassination attempt did not cause as much noise as that little brawl," he said of the shoot-out involving his son.

Ghukasian warned that if another attempt is made to kill him, he has "several hundred" audio recordings of people living in and outside of Armenia who can speak to the identity of those behind the attack

"The perpetrators have a party affiliation," Ghukasian claimed. "It's the same force that tried to kill me before the election, to have the Republican Party lose in Gyumri." The mayor went on to claim that he alone had brought in 35,000 votes for the party in the recent parliamentary elections.

Republican Party spokesperson Eduard Sharmazanov told EurasiaNet that the party has always appreciated Ghukasian's voter mobilization efforts. Sharmazanov refrained from further comment about the Gyumri shooting until the case is brought to trial.