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The Predecessor Operation
// Armenia’s first president wants to become the third one
Thursday is the deadline for Armenian presidential candidates to file documents to confirm their nomination ahead of the February 19 election. But the campaign is already on in this country. The election is most likely to turn into a battle between Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisyan and Armenia’s first President Levon Ter-Petrosyan. Kommersant’s Vladimir Solovyev goes to Yerevan to meet the two candidates and evaluate their political potential.
Candidates Ready
The last stage of the presidential race is finishing in Armenia on Thursday. The country’s Central Election Commission will stop receiving documents from presidential candidates at 6 o’clock in the evening. After that the election authority will start registration. All candidates are going to be endorsed by January 20 next year when the election campaign will officially start.
Six would-be presidential candidates have filed applications with the commission by Wednesday. They are chairman of the National Democratic Union Vazgen Manukyan, one of the leaders of the Dashnaktsutyun Armenian Revolution Federation Vagan Ovannisyan, the People’s Party leader Tigran Karapetyan, the National Unity party leader Artashes Gegamyan, Armenia’s first President Levon Ter-Petrosyan and incumbent Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisyan.
The campaign is already in full swing even though the official start will be announced a month and a half later. Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisyan and former President Levon Ter-Petrosyan are the most potent candidates, according to Armenian analysts. “If the election is held tomorrow, Ter-Petrosyan is going to have much more chance to win than Sarkisyan,” Alexander Iskanderyan, direction of the Caucasus Media Institute, told Kommersant. “But the election is on February 19, not tomorrow, so everything may change.”
Messrs. Ter-Petrosyan and Sarkisyan realize that it will come down to a political duel, and they are now active gathering their existing resources.
Kocharyan’s Plan
Armenian authorities started forging Serzh Sarkisyan’s victory at the start of the year. Armenian President Robert Kocharyan, who is stepping down in February, made it clear that he would not breach the Constitution and look for ways to stay in power for the third term. He also said that he was not going to hand over to a random person and named former Defense Minister Serzh Sarkisyan to be his successor. Like the outgoing president Mr. Sarkisyan comes from the restive region of Nagorno Karabakh. Following the sudden death of previous Prime Minister Andranik Markaryan in March Mr. Sarkisyan left the post of the defense minister to take over the government. He also became the leader of the country’s ruling Republican party. The Republicans then won a sweeping victory, and Mr. Kocharyan publicly named the prime minister as the would-be president.
No one had any doubt that Serzh Sarkisyan is able to occupy the presidential seat easily until former President Levon Ter-Petrosyan mentioned his presidential ambitions in October. Mr. Ter-Petrosyan has not been out policies since February 1998 when she had to step down in a row with then Prime Minister Robert Kocharyan and Interior Minister Serzh Sarkisyan over the Nagorno Karabakh peace settlement plan. Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s time in office is described in print media and on television as “the disastrous 90s” that the country must not go back to. The Voice of Armenia newspaper has come the greatest lengths in denouncing plans of the former president. When the former Armenian leader called on international organizations and foreign embassies to help insure a fair vote the publication called his a “supergrass” who wants to “cast a shadow on the upcoming election”.
Meanwhile, those businessmen who threw their support behind Mr. Ter-Petrosayn were raided by tax authorities. Khachatur Sukisyan, one of the country’s richest men, was the first one. Afterwards, the tax agency visited the office of regional TV station Gala in the city of Gyumri. A few days after the TV channel had televised the former president’s speech the company received with tax claims of 26 million drams (around $85,000). Gyumri’s city hall, meanwhile, demanded that the company’s broadcast equipment be taken down from the city TV tower.
Serzh Sarkisyan, however, says that he does not consider Ter-Petrosyan to be a strong rival. “You know, he’s not acting against me,” the prime minister told Kommersant. “He may think that he’s against me, but I think he is doing it for himself. I have no bad feeling towards him.” Asked for the reason for a sweeping anti-Ter-Petrosyan campaign in Armenian media Mr. Sarkisyan said: “I would not like to discuss the election with Russian media. It’s our domestic issue, and we shouldn’t make a problem out of it. We’ll manage on our own. You are not informed enough and say incorrect things.”
Ter-Petrosyan’s Game
With no media or administrative resources at his disposal Levon Ter-Petrosyan has adopted the tactic of street campaigning. He held consultations with Armenian opposition attracting some 20 parties and movements to his side. They include well-known politicians such as the Armenia People’s Party leader Stepan Demirchyan, son of the parliament’s speaker Karen Demirchyan who was killed in a terrorist attack in the parliament in October 1999, and the Democratic Party leader Aram Sarkisyan, brother of another 1999 terrorist attack victim, the late Vazgen Sarkisyan.
The former president and his allies have settled on Freedom Square in downtown Yerevan before the Opera Theater. Two opposition rallies took place there in October and November drawing 15,000 to 25,000 people, according to different estimates. All the demonstrations ended with Mr. Ter-Petrosyan’s blistering criticism of incumbent authorities. Another rally in the Armenian capital is slated for December 8 when the candidate promised he would unveil his election program which has so far been kept in secret.
The ex-president’s allies say they have given him their support out of moral reasons and have claims for any positions in the government should Mr. Ter-Petrosyan wins the election. “We don’t need any posts,” Ararat Zurabyan, leader of the Armenian National Movement party, told Kommersant. “We want to give a future to this country. We need to balance our foreign policy. We’re always either pro-West or Russia’s stronghold.”
Apparently, foreign policy will be a burning issue on the election trail as the country has been living in the blockade since it gained independence. Borders with Turkey and Azerbaijan are locked and the country’s only link to the outside world is the railroad through Georgia and the country’s only airline company Armavia.
Mr. Zurabyan is sure that the situation can get right only with the help of Levon Ter-Petrosyan. Stepan Demirchyan feels the same way. He told Kommersant that he is supporting the former president because no one else can beat the ruling duo Kocharyan-Sarkisyan.
However, opposition leaders may have rallied together behind the first president for yet another reason. Robert Kocharyan said that he would not breach the Constitution to stay for another term but he was not going to become a “young pensioner” either. The statement left everyone guessing in what capacity he may stay in politics. Mr. Kocharyan’s close ally, Parliament Speaker Tirgran Torosyan, mentioned briefly in October that the president may become the prime minister. The statement caused a quite a debate. All the more, Robert Kocharyan pushed through a Constitution referendum in 2005 which the majority voted to cut the president’s powers to give more the prime minister. Opposition cannot be happy about the idea of Messrs. Sarkisyan and Kocharyan swapping places since the combination can be repeated again and again.
Vladimir Solovyev
All the Article in Russian as of Dec. 06, 2007
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