Armenia's May 6 parliamentary election may have left less space for political checks and balances than desired, but it could lead to more financial cheques. While opposition parties cry fraud and observers frown at irregularities, the triumph of Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan’s ruling Republican Party of Armenia at the polls is a “credit positive” event for Armenia, according to Moody's Investor Service.
That the Sargsyan-loyal parliamentary majority has become even a larger majority will have a stabilizing effect on Armenia’s national creditworthiness, Bloomberg reported, citing Moody’s Investor Service.
The election outcome “will ensure a degree of political stability and policy continuity,” Moody’s analysts are quoted by Bloomberg as saying. And that policy has been to reduce government deficit and improve tax collection.
Yet Armenia's creditworthiness still carries a junk rating. The Ba2 grade on Moody’s list of naughty-and-nice countries (ranked by their ability to repay loans) means that lenders to Armenia run “significant” risk. Armenia has little external shock-absorption capacity thanks to its high dependence on the volatile Russian and EU markets, Moody’s wrote in November last year. Though Armenia has convalesced from its 2009 slump, Moody’s assessment for Armenia’s credit outlook has remained “negative” ever since.
Within almost one day, France elected a new president, Russia installed its old one and Armenia essentially kept its old parliament. All three events have significant implications for Armenia’s future.
Back in Yerevan, Armenia’s political opposition is finding it hard to digest the news that it will remain an opposition and one with a modest presence in the new parliament, according to early election results. Whether or not the election's top-two finalists -- President Serzh Sargsyan's Republican Party of Armenia and the Prosperous Armenia Party -- will revive their governing coalition remains open to speculation, but is not a question likely to keep anyone up late.
But while Armenia faces a prospect of more of the same in its political kitchen, there has been a change on the foreign policy front.
On May 6, France laid off President Nicolas Sarkozy, a self-styled friend of the Armenians and a longtime Turkey-skeptic. President Sargsyan enjoyed good vibes with Sarkozy, and the latter played the Armenian card heavily in the final year of his presidency.
In France, Sarkozy backed a law that criminalized denying that the Ottoman Empire's World-War-I-era slaughter of ethnic Armenians in Turkey was genocide. He went barn-storming across the Caucasus, where he struck the pose of a supporter of the Armenian cause and the savior of Georgia during its 2008 war with Russia. But wagging a finger at Turkey and wooing the Diaspora Armenian vote did not help Sarkzoy secure a second term.
