ARMENIA POLL SPARKS DOMESTIC OUTCRY, WESTERN CRITICISM
Emil Danielyan: 3/07/03

Armenia faces domestic tumult in the aftermath of the March 5 presidential run-off, in which incumbent Robert Kocharian triumphed with two-thirds of the vote amid widespread allegations of ballot-stuffing. International observers are condemning Kocharian’s administration, while the opposition vows to organize popular protests.

The Armenian opposition, led by defeated presidential candidate Stepan Demirchian, accused the Kocharian administration of rigging the ballot and "usurping" power. Local observers anticipate more trouble ahead as the opposition vows to fight for its cause "to the end" with a campaign of street protests. Opposition activists say the widespread ballot-stuffing has severely damaged Armenia’s international reputation, and threatens to scuttle hopes for democratization that were raised by the country’s 2001 admission to the Council of Europe.

"Armenia will be seen as a country with a dictatorial regime and Robert Kocharian will be responsible for further developments," Stepan Zakarian, secretary of the People’s Party of Armenia, told a March 6 news conference. "We were not silent and will not keep silent."

Official run-off results gave Kocharian 67.5 percent of the vote to Demirchian’s 32.5 percent. Kocharian’s vote total was the highest recorded by any presidential candidate since Armenia regained independence in 1991.

"If Robert Kocharian believes that he won the elections, then his was a pyrrhic victory," Demirchian said March 6.

Western observers from the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) found that the conduct of the vote "fell short of international standards." [For background see the Eurasia Insight archives]. On March 7, the United States joined the chorus of international critics.

"Armenia’s leadership missed an important opportunity to advance democratization by holding a credible election," the US State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher, said in a statement circulated by the US Embassy in Yerevan. "We call on the government to get on the road to building a democratic Armenia, beginning with a full and transparent investigation of election irregularities, accountability for those responsible and other steps to restore public confidence."

On March 6, the chairman of the Central Election Commission (CEC), Artak Sahgradian, defended the results, charactering the balloting as "calm and transparent," the Mediamax news agency reported. The CEC came under widespread criticism for shortcomings in administering the first round of the presidential balloting February 19. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archives].

That the run-off’s aftermath would not be calm was already obvious after the first round of voting February 19. Although Demirchian and all other opposition candidates succeeded in forcing Kocharian into a run-off, they challenged its official outcome, which showed the latter winning 49.5 percent of the vote. The third-placed candidate, Artashes Geghamian of the opposition National Unity party, demanded that the poll be scrapped altogether and re-run.

Demirchian, who is backed by over a dozen opposition parties, shared Geghamian’s position, but nevertheless chose to contest the run-off. He defended this decision at an opposition rally in Yerevan on March 6, during which he refused to recognize Kocharian’s victory. "Those published results have nothing to do with the real choice made by the people and cannot be accepted by me," Demirchian declared.

The Demirchian campaign cried foul long before the closure of polls on March 5. Like in the first round, it called urgent news conferences to present reports of ballot box stuffing, proxy intimidation and number fixing filed by its activists from various regions of the country.

Kocharian’s powerful campaign chief, Defense Minister Serge Sarkisian, on March 7 rejected the criticism of international monitors, saying that OSCE observers based their conclusions on irregularities witnessed in the minority of 1,864 polling stations. He also claimed that Western observers are not as familiar with the "Armenian mentality" as their CIS counterparts, who described the elections as fair.

"Violations … were not massive," a March 6 CIS observer mission statement said. "On the whole, we believe that they did not influence the course of the elections."

The latest OSCE report was even more critical than the one issued in the wake of the February 19 first round, described by the secretary general of the Council of Europe, Walter Schwimmer, as a "missed opportunity for Armenia to win the confidence of European public opinion."

Scwhimmer’s reaction to Yerevan’s handling of the run-off will hardly be more positive. Council of Europe officials who also monitored the vote said it is too early speculate about possible sanctions against Armenia.

Although the opposition intends to take its case to the Constitutional Court, it clearly pins greater hopes on the outpouring of popular anger with the regime. On March 7 it again rallied thousands of supporters to demand the invalidation of the election results. But very few observers believe that Kocharian will give in to the opposition’s demands.

Local observers believe that authorities are betting mass demonstrations will fizzle out in a few days. In the meantime, riot police, backed by interior troops, are guarding the presidential palace in Yerevan. The key question now is what will happen if the opposition crowds march towards it.

Editor’s Note: Emil Danielyan is a Yerevan-based journalist and political analyst.

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Posted March 7, 2003 © Eurasianet
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