Armenia: Patronage and Deep Pockets Become Issues in the Yerevan Mayoral Election

Yerevan's City Council elections may be more than a month and a half away, but improvements to the Armenian capital's infrastructure and appearance remind residents that the unofficial campaign season is well under way.

In recent weeks, incumbent Mayor Gagik Beglarian, a member of the governing Republican Party of Armenia, has promised to build new water lines, to landscape parks, to pave thousands of square meters of back yards, and to install additional city lights. His reason? "We shall succeed together," Beglarian declared on April 1 to journalists in one Yerevan district.

Campaign workers for Healthcare Minister Harutiun Kushkian, the mayoral candidate for the Prosperous Armenia Party, have been busy, too. Kushkian supporters distributed roses and greeting cards to women in Yerevan on April 7, the Armenian Day of Beauty and Motherhood. Prosperous Armenia is joined with the Republican Party in Armenia's governing coalition on the national level.

"This is not a pre-election move," said Prosperous Armenia parliamentarian Naira Zohrabian who is handling public relations for the campaign. "Attention to women is a tradition in our party."

The handouts and public works are making it harder for an opposition party coalition to gain traction with voters. The coalition is aiming to capture a big enough share of the vote to make opposition leader and former president Levon Ter-Petrosian mayor of the Armenian capital. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insightb/articles/eav031609i.shtml Some of his supporters indicate that their apparent financial disadvantage is imposing a significant hurdle to achieving their aim. A top representative of People's Party of Armenia, a member of Ter-Petrosian's opposition movement, noted that such distributions have not occurred in the past. "Unfortunately, the work style is quite familiar to us," commented Ruzan Khachatrian, a member of the party's political council. "Those efforts will be even bigger this time, because the opposition's chances are incomparably bigger as well."

There are seven contenders for the mayor's post, including Ter-Petrosian, whose participation has stimulated media and public interest in the May 31 vote. Parties, however, have revealed little information about their campaigns. A 60-million-dram (about $161,264) spending limit, however, would appear to set certain restraints on their activities -- at least by law. But some observers see parties, with their handouts and promises, as evading the spirit of the spending limit. If that is the case, there is little that can be done to stop such practices, election officials say.

"The Central Electoral Commission has no authority to supervise [campaign expenses] before the campaign officially starts," explained commission spokesperson Tatev Ohanian.

Ohanian, however, saw no problem with the distribution of flowers in Yerevan to women voters. "The CEC would not oppose it if women were also presented with perfumes 365 days a year," he said. "That wouldn't be bad."

People's Party of Armenia official Khachatrian counters that flowers are just the start. "Authorities will once again use administrative resources. They collect passport data at educational and healthcare institutions," she said. Opposition media reports that passport data is being collected to assist Mayor Beglarian's reelection bid have sparked concerns among both the opposition and members of the governing coalition.

Haykakan Zhamanak daily newspaper reporter Christine Khanumian visited Yerevan's School #60 and identified herself as an image consultant for Mayor Beglarian. The school principal shared the passport data entered into her computer, and showed that they had been recorded on a CD and sent to the mayor, Khanumian claimed.

"The principal boasted that she had personally collected a large amount of data [about her subordinates], and told me that everything is going very well," Khanumian told EurasiaNet. "As I was leaving, she wished success to 'our common cause'." An assistant to the principal later denied the allegations, she said.

The collection of passport data by political parties is a reoccurring problem in Armenian election campaigns; the data is used to check that individuals vote for a certain candidate as promised.

Mayoral candidate Artsvik Minasian, a member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation Party, told EurasiaNet that he had been given such data by a number of sources. "That's not the best way to succeed in elections," Minasian said, adding that "the question has also been raised by colleagues from the coalition."

"It's very important not to have administrative leverage used, yet it is," he continued. "Only the president can guarantee that administrative leverage will not be used. Like in many other matters, here as well, it depends on the president's behavior."

Prosperous Armenia MP Zohrabian also admitted to receiving such data, but put the onus for a fair vote on all parties participating in the election. "Each [political] group needs to be able to take control over the procedure," she said. "Besides, I don't take those lists and data seriously. That's a waste of time." Voters can vote as they wish, even if they give out their passport details, Zohrabian asserted.

The governing Republican Party of Armenia asserts that discussions about the use of administrative resources are nonsense. Spokesperson Eduard Sharmazanov underlined that the party neither needs, nor has the desire or opportunity, to use administrative resources. "The ancient Romans used to say that nothing spreads as rapidly as a lie," Sharmazanov commented. "Whether it is rain or snow, there are always the authorities to blame for this. We will do our best to hold an open, transparent and democratic election."