EurasiaNet Eurasia Insight - CHALLENGES AHEAD FOR ARMENIA’S CONSTITUTIONAL VOTE

EURASIA INSIGHT

CHALLENGES AHEAD FOR ARMENIA’S CONSTITUTIONAL VOTE
Haroutiun Khachatrian 10/13/05

Armenia is bracing for a contentious constitutional referendum in November. The opposition’s refusal to accept President Robert Kocharian’s proposed changes to Armenia’s constitution has put it at loggerheads with the international community, which has backed the amendments.

On September 1, the last day of an extraordinary session, Armenia’s National Assembly adopted the government’s proposed constitutional amendments in the second reading. Despite pressure from members of the governing coalition and representatives of Western countries, the main opposition parties declared that they would not support the draft in a referendum scheduled for November 27.

The four-day parliamentary session resulted in a series of amendments designed to downplay presidential powers and gain the approval of the Venice Commission, the Council of Europe advisory body for constitutional law, which had rejected an earlier draft in May as unsatisfactory. Opposition members, who interrupted their one-and-a-half-year boycott of parliament to attend the special session, refused to take part in the final vote on the proposed amendments.

Besides the Council of Europe, the draft was publicly endorsed by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Yerevan mission and the US and British ambassadors.

In an interview published in the August 26-27 edition of the Hayots Ashkhar daily, British Ambassador Thorda Abbot-Watt rejected calls for a "color revolution" during the November vote, and stressed that the European Union, whose rotating presidency the United Kingdom currently holds, "prefer evolutionary ways of development rather than revolutionary ones." The vote on the revised constitution is part of that process, the ambassador implied. "Let’s not forget that what we deal with is not a regular election or a referendum of confidence in connection of the previous elections. We deal with the constitution, a document pre-determining the principal directions of the country’s development."

Nonetheless, the government faces considerable obstacles in securing a "yes" vote for its amended constitution this November. Putting voter lists in order is one sizeable challenge. Overcoming public apathy is another. Disinterest in the topic of constitutional reforms notably increased after parliamentarians were seen during the special session televised live hurling insults at each other. Public awareness of the proposed changes is also relatively minimal since the proposed constitution has not yet been published. An earlier version was posted on the National Assembly’s website, but less than 10 percent of Armenians have Internet access.

In addition, Kocharian must demonstrate to the international community that the vote is free and fair. In an August 26 statement, US Ambassador John Evans termed the revised constitution "a notable step forward," urging the government to take "the necessary steps . . . to increase public awareness about this important process so that a well-informed public can express its will in the referendum scheduled for November." Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice has recently raised the importance of a transparent vote with President Kocharian, the US State Department has announced.

If adopted, the revised constitution would enter into force two years from the referendum.
The government appears to believe that the success of the referendum is not guaranteed. Defense Minister Serge Sargsian, widely seen as a potential presidential candidate, was quoted by the Russian news agency Regnum as emphasizing that a "no" vote in November would not mean a vote of no confidence in the Kocharian administration.

"I will not consider that the people have expressed their distrust in the authorities," Sargsian said on September 1. "As you remember, there were referenda in European countries that were not adopted either. However, this was not interpreted as distrust in the authorities."

Western countries’ endorsement of the draft constitution reinforced the ruling coalition’s own campaign for both ordinary Armenians’ and the opposition’s support for the amendments. "Do you suppose that we have bribed these foreign governments?" Galust Sahakian, leader of the pro-government Republican Party faction, asked opposition members during the parliamentary debates. In reply, Shavarsh Kocharian claimed that Evans, the US envoy, had compared the process of democratization in Armenia with that in Iraq. "Why should we take Iraq rather than the European democracies as a standard?" he asked.

At the Venice Commission’s urging, the amendments adopted by parliament were intended to pass greater powers from the president to parliament and the prime minister. Among other provisions, for instance, they call on the National Assembly to appoint the human rights ombudsman and members of the National Radio and TV commission. The president has also been removed from the Council of Justice, a body that plays a key role in appointing judges.

While opposition parties had earlier pushed for such changes, in the end, they declared them insufficient. Shavarsh Kocharian, a member of the opposition bloc Ardarutiun (Justice), said his faction was not satisfied with the fact that under the amended version, the president would still have the power to appoint chairmen of courts. The opposition also took issue with the failure to provide for direct elections of the mayor of Yerevan. According to the draft, a special law to be adopted later will determine the type of elections for this position.

Political rhetoric heavily colored the opposition’s response. Ardarutiun leader Stepan Demirchian stated that his bloc would say no to the referendum and "the illegal authorities," since "no steps are taken to create an atmosphere of confidence." The National Unity faction adopted a similar position, saying that they would support the amendments only if the November constitutional referendum was followed by early parliamentary, and then, early presidential elections. Deputies from both factions left parliament the day before the vote on the constitutional amendments.

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

The Central Eurasia Project aims, through its website, meetings, papers, and grants, to foster a more informed debate about the social, political and economic developments of the Caucasus and Central Asia. It is a program of the Open Society Institute-New York. The Open Society Institute-New York is a private operating and grantmaking foundation that promotes the development of open societies around the world by supporting educational, social, and legal reform, and by encouraging alternative approaches to complex and controversial issues.

The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent the position of the Open Society Institute and are the sole responsibility of the author or authors.