Shame and gloom as everyone loses in Armenia

Edmund Herzig

Overshadowed by polling in Bosnia and with an easy victory predicted for the incumbent President, Levon Ter-Petrossian, Armenia's September election generated little excitement at home or abroad, until half of the opposition candidates dropped out, turning the campaign into a two-horse race. When official results gave Ter-Petrossian just enough votes to avoid a run-off, the challenger, Vazgen Manukian, cried foul. An attack on the parliament building was followed by a clamp-down on demonstrations and opposition parties.

Armenia — a small, land-locked country bordering Turkey, Iran, Azerbaijan and Georgia — won independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. The new state was born into an undeclared war with Azerbaijan over the mountainous Karabagh autonomous enclave. It was a war in which the Armenians came out on top by the time of the 1994 cease-fire, but which wreaked havoc on the Armenian economy thanks to the cutting off of energy supplies from Azerbaijan. Industry came to a virtual standstill, the population faced several harsh winters without electricity. In addition, there were the problems of transition experienced by all the former Soviet republics — collapse of the old command economy, financial instability, and a breakdown in social services. There was a catastrophic decline in living standards and a wave of economic emigration. Levon Ter-Petrossian was elected President in 1991, and his pragmatic policies are credited with preventing the country slipping, like neighbouring Georgia and Azerbaijan, into internal chaos. His government has also presided over an economic programme that has allowed the country to achieve macroeconomic stability and growth of over five per cent in two consecutive years (1994-5).

Self-interest?

Politically, however, Ter-Petrossian's government has less to boast of. One by one the President's old comrades from his opposition days have abandoned him to become his government's bitterest critics, levelling accusations of authoritarianism and corruption. There is a widespread belief that politicians — government and opposition — are motivated only by self-interest. Elections, privatisation and new legislation are, in the eyes of a disillusioned electorate, merely the covers under which a small corrupt clique can concentrate wealth and power in its own hands, and at the same time present to international observers a picture of `transition to democracy and the market economy'.

In Armenia the emergence of this new elite was facilitated by the very smoothness of the hand-over from Soviet rule to independence. The triumphant nationalists were able to win over and co-opt a large part of the communist nomenklatura. As a result, at local level it is often the same old people occupying positions of power, and there is an unhealthy overlap between political, administrative and economic authority.

There are indeed worrying recent developments in Armenia's political direction. One key moment was the 1994 suspension of the best-organised opposition party — the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) or Dashnaktsutiun — on the charge that it harboured an illegal cell involved in terrorism, murder and drug trafficking. The manner and repeated extensions of the suspension and the interminable court cases against ARF members — one of which, the so-called `Trial of 31', is still going on — suggest a pattern of deliberate suppression.

The other crucial moment was the constitutional referendum and parliamentary election of July 1995. The new constitution was severely criticised for concentrating too much power in the hands of the President. The parliamentary elections earned the ambivalent sobriquet `free but not fair' from UN/OSCE international observers: the banning of the ARF and the state-owned mass media gave the government candidates and parties an `unfair' advantage, though voters were able to cast their ballots `freely'.

Opposition complaints also focused on the counting of the ballots. The count was not subject to the same international scrutiny as the balloting itself and the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) had ten days to release results — more than enough, the opposition alleged, to rig them.

Pro-government parties won a landslide victory, but national politics became further polarised. Public faith in the government's democratic credentials was weakened rather than reinforced, setting the scene for the embittered 1996 presidential contest.

Populism or more of the same?

The campaign was not distinguished by much serious debate. In fact, the policies advocated by Ter-Petrossian and Manukian, formerly a prime minister in a Ter-Petrossian government, are broadly similar. The main distinguishing features were Manukian's blatant populism — promising to raise real wages tenfold and end conscription, for example — while Ter-Petrossian merely promised more of the same: continuing stability and economic growth.

Far more than policy, it was accusations and personalities which dominated. Manukian blamed Ter-Petrossian for the prevalent corruption and for industrial collapse, while the President's campaign suggested that a Manukian victory would spell tyranny and chaos.

It is generally agreed that Manukian's challenge lay not in his own popularity, but in the `protest vote' against the government. Ter-Petrossian appeared incapable of addressing the main issues that have alienated so many people - corruption, appointments based on clientelism not merit, and a general sense that the government has lost interest in the welfare of ordinary people. Had he taken heed of Boris Yeltsin's manoeuvres in this year's Russian election campaign, he might have realised that ditching a few of the most unpopular government figures can work wonders for a flagging campaign.

The government crackdown on the political opposition in September 1996 cast a pall on human rights. Given the 1995 ban on the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, Armenia's largest opposition party, and fraudulent 1995 parliamentary elections, the 1996 crackdown accentuated the governments intolerance of any real political opposition. (...) The ARF remained banned throughout 1996, while the Ministry of Justice reviewed its request for reinstatement. At the latest hearing (September 12), the Ministry of Justice rejected the ARFs registration papers, claiming that they lacked the requisite minutes of the ARFs founding Congress. As of this writing the process has not been completed. Human Rights Watch/Helsinki 1997 World Report

The campaign itself was more cleanly run than in 1995. Opposition rallies took place unimpeded and opposition candidates used their free broadcasting slots almost without interruption. Nevertheless, the European Institute for the Media/Yerevan Press Club monitoring of the media suggested that once again the government enjoyed an enormous advantage thanks to the virtual state monopoly of radio and television.

There were also widespread allegations of pro-government pressure from heads of enterprises, village councils and schools, and from army and police officers. The new law on presidential elections and the work of the CEC won general support. As late as 6 September, Manukian himself said that the authorities had taken a significant step towards legitimate elections.

Polling was relatively smooth, without reports of civilians being prevented from casting their votes secretly and freely. Nevertheless, the OSCE international observers did record many infringements of the electoral law, especially in the way the military voted, and the presence of unauthorised people in polling stations.

It was also clear that one of the principal checks and balances in the law - the participation of candidates' authorised representatives or proxies - did not always work, either because the opposition failed to get its people to many of the more remote polling stations or because of deliberate obstruction by members of electoral commissions. Furthermore, many electoral commissions were highly politicised, seriously hindering their ability to act impartially.

Over the hurdle

Early preliminary results suggested that Levon Ter-Petrossian had a comfortable margin over the 50 per cent hurdle to avoid a second round run-off. As the results from Yerevan trickled in, however, it became clear that Manukian had swept the capital, and Ter-Petrossian's margin shrank to one or two per cent. The final official results gave Ter-Petrossian 51.75 per cent of the vote, Vazgen Manukian 41.29 per cent, while the communist candidate Sergei Badalian came a distant third with 6.34 per cent. About 60 per cent of Armenia's 2.2 million eligible voters took part.

The OSCE mission's final statement (1 October) highlighted serious breaches during the tabulation of results, noting the disappearance of some 22,000 ballots — enough to bring Ter-Petrossian's percentage of the vote below 51 — and that, given the small margin of the incumbent's victory, these could `only contribute to a lack of confidence in the overall electoral process and could even question the results of the first round of balloting'. By this time, however, the work of the CEC and the international observers had long since been swept from centre stage.

Claims of `coups'

On the days following the election, the opposition organised large demonstrations protesting alleged election abuses and demanding recounts in certain precincts (constituencies). The early demonstrations were peaceful and orderly, but Vazgen Manukian was already describing Ter-Petrossian's claim to victory as a `coup détat', accusing the election authorities of falsifying the results and claiming the right as `President-elect' to appeal to the people to take action. He claimed to have evidence, in the form of official election return documents collected by his proxies, that he had won 55 per cent of the vote. Only when this evidence is checked against that of the CEC and the OSCE will it be possible to respond.

On the third day the demonstration turned violent. Manukian's speech to the demonstrators was inflammatory. He called for resolute action and said that there was a need `for the kind of people capable of seizing a building'. Before entering the parliament building for negotiations with the CEC, he told the demonstrators: `If I do not come out in half an hour, follow me in.'

About 45 minutes later an opposition spokesman announced over a loudhailer that Manukian had been detained in the building and the crowd broke through the gates and stormed the parliament building. A group smashed up the speaker's office, taking the speaker and deputy speaker hostage and beating both with metal stair-rods. Soldiers cleared the demonstrators using batons, tear gas and firing in the air. One demonstrator and one soldier were reported killed and a considerable number of people injured.

Circumstantial evidence suggests that Manukian and his associates deliberately incited the demonstrators to attack the parliament building. This certainly was the view of one of the opposition candidates who had relinquished his own candidacy in favour of Manukian. It is equally clear that the attack on the parliament did not amount to an attempted coup d'état, as the government claimed. Eyewitness accounts suggest that the failure of the security services to control the demonstration was not entirely accidental, alleging that the gates mysteriously collapsed almost at the first push, and that when the demonstrators broke in the soldiers seemed to `melt away'. It is not implausible that at some level a decision was taken to allow the demonstrators to overstep the mark and give a pretext for a clamp-down.

Haven't we been here before?

Many demonstrators noted the similarity to the Karabagh demonstrations of 1988. As one put it: `The only difference is that then the soldiers were Russians and now they're Armenians.' Those demonstrations also culminated in the storming of the parliament building and beating of the speaker - one of the decisive steps in bringing down the communist government. Was the opposition, consciously or unconsciously, trying to retread those steps?

The government's response to the attack was unsurprising: demonstrations were banned, parliamentary immunity was removed from eight deputies, opposition party headquarters were closed and there was a spate of arrests and detentions.

For several days central Yerevan was closed by a heavy police and army presence, including armoured vehicles. Vazgen Manukian, who had not been detained, went into hiding, from where he has issued further statements challenging the validity of the election and demanding an impartial recount or rerun.

Opposition destroyed

In the short term, the obvious result has been the effective destruction of the opposition. The government has shown that it is capable of maintaining control and order, but its resort to force has further undermined public confidence in the democratic process and left a widespread suspicion that Ter-Petrossian owes his position to control over the instruments of power, rather than the number of ballots cast in his favour. Public response to the events mixed shame — that `civilised' Armenia could sink so low — with gloom, foreseeing a heavier authoritarian rule.

In the immediate aftermath, everyone appears to have been a loser in this election. However, a statement by Ter-Petrossian at the end of September suggests that he may at last have been shocked into a realisation of how unpopular his government has become. His rhetoric noticeably softened, referring to a `a heavy moral blow' that should not be turned into `a national tragedy'.

More encouraging is the release of a number of opposition figures detained in the wake of the violence. Ter-Petrossian also reiterated his campaign promise of a government reshuffle and a crackdown on corruption. Much will depend on whether these go far enough to convince people that the President has taken the message to heart.

Even more important, however, is the continuing suspension of the ARF and the ongoing `Trial of 31'. With the opposition of the last two years now largely under arrest or underground, the only prospect of an open, functioning opposition lies in the rapid reinstatement of the ARF. In the `Trial of 31', which has come to symbolise so much of what has been wrong in Armenia's public life over the past few years, only an early verdict that carries conviction that it has been reached by due legal process can help set the country back on course towards democratic government.

The World Today
Vol. 52, No. 11, November 1996
Edmund Herzig is Senior Research Fellow of the Royal Institute of International Affairs Russia and Eurasia Programme and a Lecturer at Manchester University.
He was an international observer during the elections in Armenia.