The West Watches Armenia Choose

The United States and Europe strongly criticized the 1998 Armenian elections and are again keeping a watchful eye on the intensifying election campaign. This time, Western officials say, the scrutiny will be far more focused.

"The process will be put under a microscope to a much larger extent than it was in the past," said a Western diplomatic source in Yerevan who asked not to be identified. "This will be a real test of Armenia's international commitments."

Peter Eicher, head of a monitoring mission from the OSCE, likewise describes the February 19 vote as a "big challenge for Armenia." "I think it's a test this time to see whether the authorities have progressed far enough to run an election which is really clean and really meets international standards," Eicher said in an interview. "I think there is going to be a lot of interest internationally on this."

Eicher's mission is the largest Western-led group to monitor the polls, and its judgment will therefore be crucial for their international legitimacy. The mission currently numbers 25 long-term observers from 16 OSCE member countries. They will be joined by more than 250 short-term monitors on the eve of the voting.

Eleven candidates representing virtually the country's entire political spectrum are vying for the presidency. Kocharian, who is far ahead of his rivals in opinion polls, is aiming for a landslide victory in the first round. But some independent pollsters say he is not popular enough to avoid a risky runoff with an opposition contender. Their surveys show that the opposition vote, though split among several candidates, exceeds Kocharian's current approval ratings.

Two left-wing opposition politicians – Stepan Demirchian and Artashes Geghamian – are currently seen as Kocharian's main challengers. Also in contention are two former prime ministers: Vazgen Manukian and Aram Sargsian. The latter is the younger brother of another former premier, Vazgen Sargsian, who was killed in the October 1999 terrorist attack on the Armenian parliament.

Opposition leaders are already accusing Kocharian, who is backed by the state apparatus, of planning to manipulate the vote on a massive scale. There have been numerous reports of senior government officials ordering their subordinates to campaign for Kocharian in breach of the law. Justice Minister David Harutiunian was forced to admit last week that he had summoned school principals in Yerevan and told them to "propagate" Kocharian's re-election among their students' parents.

Although Kocharian has repeatedly pledged to ensure a clean election, one Western diplomat cautioned, "There is still a lot of potential for fraudulent voting." He pointed to the biased media coverage of opposition candidates, persistent inaccuracies in voter lists, and a lack of transparency in the tabulation of ballots. OSCE observers have singled out the latter problem and urged the authorities to publish a precinct-by-precinct breakdown of election results.

"It is an absolutely key control that allows every citizen to see that the results of their polling station were included accurately as the count went forward," Eicher explained. "Very often, in countries where elections are manipulated, the manipulation is found not so much in the stuffing of ballot boxes, but rather that the results somehow change as they move up the tabulation process." Armenia's Central Election Commission, according to Eicher, has promised to consider this antifraud suggestion.

An additional source of concern is Kocharian's decision to appoint powerful Defense Minister Serzh Sarkisian as his campaign manager. The Western source termed the move as "at best, questionable," saying that Sarkisian effectively continues to perform his ministerial duties despite his announcement in November that he would take a three-month leave of absence. Sarkisian was a member of an Armenian government delegation that accompanied Kocharian during his official visit to Russia earlier this month.

Voting by the military has been a major source of vote irregularities in Armenia, with tens of thousands of army conscripts reportedly constrained to vote for the incumbent in the past.

The lingering concerns about the freedom and fairness of the upcoming presidential ballot were underscored last week by US Ambassador to Armenia John Ordway, who warned authorities against resorting to fraud. "Any significant irregularities in the process will cast doubt on the legitimacy of the whole process and, therefore, on the result," Ordway said in a brief statement.

Voting irregularities have become a tradition in Armenia, with none of the elections held since independence judged by international monitors to have been democratic. For example, the OSCE concluded that the preterm presidential election in 1998 did not meet democratic standards to which Armenia had committed itself.

Such negative international reaction did not, however, prevent Armenia from joining the Council of Europe two years ago. Still, membership of the unofficial club of European democracies brings with it higher international expectations of political reform, which might explain why the West's patience with Yerevan now seems to be wearing thin.