EurasiaNet Eurasia Insight - In Pre-Election Armenia, a Crowded Stage of Players

EURASIA INSIGHT

IN PRE-ELECTION ARMENIA, A CROWDED STAGE OF PLAYERS
Haroutiun Khachatrian 9/26/02

With fewer than five months remaining before voters choose a president on February 19, Armenian politicians are campaigning feverishly for a series of polls in the coming months. But neither incumbent president Robert Kocharyan nor his potential rivals seem to have a clear sense of where they can draw support.

By May 25, 2003, Armenians will elect new local governments, vote on a new presidential term, and elect a new Parliament. Local elections take place October 20, followed by the presidential vote and finally by parliamentary elections in May. Meanwhile, lawmakers are preparing amendments to the Constitution [for background, see the Eurasia Insight archives] and may reach the voters in a referendum later in 2003. The country’s political elite has begun active preparations for this series of polls. While election commissioners have promised to closely scrutinize voter lists to eliminate fraud in the local elections, Armenia’s multiparty opposition has focused on the presidential vote. With former candidate Paruyr Hayrikyan predicting on September 3 that Kocharyan would not win re-election even if he runs unopposed because he cannot draw half the country’s votes, Armenia appears headed for a dramatic vote. With so many players interested in roiling Kocharyan or furthering their own political fortunes, it has become evident that the presidential election will greatly influence (if not determine), not only the result of the May parliamentary elections, but the path of the country’s further development for many years to come. Yet it is not clear to candidates or to observers where that direction might lead.

Kocharyan, now serving out his first five-year term, declared his intention to run for the second term as early as a year ago. However, by now, only one political party, the Ramkavar-Azatakan, which has no representatives in the present National Assembly, has declared its support of the president’s bid. Kocharyan lacks his own party, and the members of the current pro-government majority, the Republic party led by Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan and the nationalist Dashnakstutiun party, have conspicuously declined to endorse him. They are likely seeking more political promises from the president in exchange for support, and may also be keeping quiet while they wait to see what sort of support Kocharyan draws from the Armenian Diaspora and from foreign governments.

Two main contestants have emerged to take on the president. One may be a candidate of the Armenian National Movement (ANM), which elected Kocharyan’s predecessor. Levon Ter-Petrosian, who resigned in 1998 after standoffs with the military, has neither encouraged nor silenced speculation that he will run again. Many observers believe he could pose the stiffest challenge to Kocharyan. But according to Vardan Vardanyan, an analyst with A1+ TV, other politicians might want Ter-Petrosian’s return more keenly than Ter-Petrossian wants to come back. Former ambassador to Britain and prime minister Armen Sargisyan may run under the ANM banner; a political weekly called Iravunk has quoted"reliable sources" as saying that Armen Sargsian has even formed his shadow government.

Another challenge to Kocharyan coalesced in September, when 16 opposition parties excluding the ANM formed the "Union of 16" or "Popular-Patriotic Union" (PPU) and vowed to act jointly to topple "the corrupt regime of Kocharyan." These parties cover a broad ideological range, from Communists to right-center theorists. As such, some observers believe it could mount a stiff challenge to the incumbent. Hayrikyan, the leader of a moderate opposition party, has said that Kocharyan would have no chance to win the elections if the PPU presents a joint candidate. He allowed, though, that the coalition members’ ideological breadth would make choosing a candidate very difficult, as the parties forming the alliance differ too much in their ideology.

This warning seems to be prudent, as many members have begun pressing their own personal agendas. Artashes Gegamyan, the leader of the National Unity party, is the most active among them. On September 13, he volunteered to stand as the coalition’s candidate; he later published an agenda and asked the other members of the alliance to respond to it as if it were the joint program of all 16 parties. The other leaders did not agree with such a vision. Many of them may have their eye on the presidency. These include Stepan Demirchyan, the leader of the People’s Party, whose father Karen died in the October 27, 1999 terrorist attack on Parliament. They also include Communist leader Vladimir Darbinyan and Vazgen Manukyan, who heads the National Democratic Union and ran as the principal rival to Ter-Petrossian during the elections of 1996.

With so many egos and agendas brewing, the Union of 16 may simply fail to achieve traction by February. As such, analysts believe that the opposition will lose credibility if its parties endorse a common candidate right away. These analysts hold that opposition parties would do better by presenting several candidates, to take as many votes as possible in the first round, and then support whoever faces Kocharyan in a runoff.

The embattled Kocharyan, who according to some estimates counts less than 20 percent of Armenians among his supporters, may suspect that the PPU would undermine itself by supporting a single candidate soon. During a meeting with reporters on September 17 he said he would prefer for the PPU to have a joint candidate so as to avoid a runoff election. Kocharyan justified this preference by arguing that each vote imposes an economic burden on the country, so that it would benefit citizens to keep election season as brief as possible. But he may be more concerned about running out of time himself.

Editor�s Note: Haroutiun Khachatrian is a Yerevan-based writer specializing in economic and political affairs.

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