The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) will meet next week to discuss Armenia’s progress on a set of reforms prescribed by the international body in an April 17 resolution. The document came in response to the country’s flawed February 19 presidential election and the government’s deadly March 1 crackdown on the subsequent opposition protests. If PACE deems the government’s progress insufficient, it could revoke Armenia’s voting privileges, a humiliating blow for a country that relies on fairly close relations with the European Union (EU) and the United States. However, if Armenia is given a pass, it would not be the first time. Armenian officials have previously managed to placate international observers, only to fall back under the spotlight when the same unresolved governance problems reappear at the next elections.
In the latest vote, incumbent prime minister Serzh Sarkisian defeated former president Levon Ter-Petrosian with the help of the state apparatus and outgoing president Robert Kocharian. According to official results, it was a first-round victory in a field of nine candidates, with Sarkisian capturing some 53 percent of the vote and Ter-Petrosian placing second with about 22 percent. But a monitoring report by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) detailed an array of problems with the election.
The electronic media, dominated by state-run outlets and private owners allied to Kocharian, displayed clear bias in favor of Sarkisian. Local officials and public workers were mustered to support the government’s candidate, and the Central Election Commission (CEC), stacked with loyal appointees, summarily rejected opposition complaints. There was some intimidation reported at polling places, but the real trouble centered on the tabulation process. The monitors described the count as “bad” or “very bad” at 16 percent of the precincts observed. Of about 1,700 polling sites, 95 had official turnout figures of over 90 percent, and one reported 100.36 percent. Sarkisian was the beneficiary of these dubious numbers, in some cases collecting over 99 percent of the vote.
The opposition failed to fully pursue legal remedies, a sign of the pervasive skepticism with which Armenians view their corruption-plagued political and judicial institutions. Indeed, Ter-Petrosian was accused of rigging his own reelection in 1996. However, the electoral code is vague on complaint procedures, and the CEC typically rebuffed complaints by saying that they should have been filed with the Administrative Court instead. Turning to a more familiar tactic, the opposition took to the streets, drawing tens of thousands of supporters.
The demonstrations were conducted peacefully for 10 days, but on the morning of March 1, police began confronting protesters, allegedly planting weapons on them as an excuse to intervene. Violence and looting ensued, with police using tear gas, truncheons, and live ammunition, and demonstrators taking up bricks, pipes, and gasoline bombs. Ten people were ultimately killed, including two police officers, and many others were injured. Kocharian declared a 20-day state of emergency, tightly censoring news broadcasts and restricting political activity. Sarkisian and other leaders warned that foreign elements were attempting to engineer a coup or “color revolution,” as in Georgia and Ukraine in 2003 and 2004. Fighting broke out along the de facto border between Armenian and Azerbaijani troops, prompting accusations that the leadership was attempting to divert attention from domestic problems. On March 8, the Constitutional Court confirmed the election outcome.
In its April resolution, PACE set a June deadline for the government to engage in a substantive dialogue with the opposition, allow an independent inquiry into the events of March 1, release the scores of opposition supporters and leaders being held on “seemingly artificial and politically motivated charges,” and repeal damaging changes to the law on public demonstrations that had been passed by the National Assembly during the state of emergency on March 17. That move must have been particularly galling to Council of Europe officials. As noted in the Countries at the Crossroads 2006 report on Armenia, the authorities had enacted restrictive legislation on demonstrations in May 2004, amid a major crackdown on antigovernment rallies. The law was amended in 2005 to address Council of Europe complaints, only to be seriously corroded again by the latest alterations.
The legal amendments are not the only grounds for a sense of Sisyphean frustration. Problems identified in Countries at the Crossroads that reappear in the recent PACE and OSCE documents include endemic electoral fraud, the use of state resources and personnel for campaign purposes, a lack of alternative viewpoints in the electronic media, the use of excessive force by police, a politically compromised and widely discredited judiciary, corrupt tax authorities who target critical media and political parties, and a significant overlap between government and business elites.
Sarkisian, who was sworn in as president on April 9, has taken some steps to meet PACE’s demands, but they appear inadequate thus far. For example, the government is setting up an advisory Public Council to foster dialogue with opposition and civil society representatives, but Ter-Petrosian’s supporters are refusing to participate until other demands, including the release of political prisoners, are met. Similarly, a parliamentary committee has been established to investigate the March 1 violence, but the government has drawn four of the five parliamentary parties into its coalition since the election, leaving only the Heritage Party, with seven out of 131 seats, in opposition. Meanwhile, another street battle seems to be brewing. The opposition is planning a major June 20 rally in central Yerevan, and the government has refused to authorize it, setting the stage for renewed political violence.
Photo credit: Flickr user onewmphoto
