That there would be mass demonstrations immediately after the presidential election held last week in Armenia was known long ago. Many observers also figured on yet another attempt by the radical opposition to stage a colored revolution of the type seen in Georgia and Ukraine. However, few expected it to succeed, but a week after the 19 February vote, the situation is now gearing up for what might be serious confrontation between opposition supporters and the authorities.
At the heart of the post-election dispute lies the issue of succession to the incumbent and outgoing president, Robert Kocharian, who is unable to run for a third term in office under the constitution. Indeed, the 19 February presidential election was seen by most critics of the government as merely a formality for Kocharian to pass on power to his trusted lieutenant, prime minister Serge Sargsyan.
The radical opposition put its hopes on the return of Armenia's first president, Levon Ter-Petrossian.
However, with many such as The Armenian Observer believing that Sargsyan would be unable to pass the 50 percent + 1 threshold to win outright on election day, a second round was expected by most independent observers. Analysts and journalists alike were all convinced of that eventuality.
But while .
[…] Complaints and information on various violations kept pouring in. The situation was apparently several times worse in the Regions. Our journalists visited several sites of violations and noted the boldness with which those were being carried out: ballots stuff, voters intimidated, journalists hindered from their work. Reports […] give me enough background to state, that the authorities most coldheartedly raped the concept of free and fair elections and might as well get away with it.
Ah yes, today is the day where corruption, blind nationalism, and fraud all come together in the form of Armenia's Presidential Election! Who will win? Who will lose? One thing's for certain, this is not going to be a demonstration of democracy and whoever is elected will first and foremost get himself rich, then those near him, and whatever is left will be spread among the lower individuals in power.
The blog later .
All of which didn't really concern the radical opposition much. Since the day after the 19 February presidential election, protests were being staged daily in the Armenian capital, Yerevan, and pulled large crowds averaging about 30,000 in terms of attendance. On 21 February, Ter-Petrossian's supporters announced round the clock demonstrations which included occupying Yerevan's Liberty Square. The Armenian Observer spent a night with demonstrators.
…and all that time I couldn’t help feeling guilty and responsible for everything that’s happening now. We all are responsible, aren’t we? But some are brave enough to stand up and fight, some, like me – look for excuses in not liking Levon or supporting Vahan – and some openly admit they are being raped by Serzh, and they even like it.
[…] Anyways – I’m not here for Levon. I’m here, because I deeply sympathize with these people. I always feel emotionally attached to people who sincerely believe in their cause. And I feel guilty for not supporting Levon – but, I just can’t! I dislike him. I don’t think he has ever done anything right! […]
Unzipped reports that several officials and diplomats, albeit those mainly linked to the former president, either joined protesters or .
Moreover, to date there has been no attempt by the authorities to violently disperse protesters and that's even though they have simultaneously held marches through the city center which have disrupted traffic and have not been sanctioned by the municipality. More significantly perhaps, faced with a lack of coverage by the mainly government-controlled broadcast media, the marches were a powerful tool in conveying a message on the streets.
[…] one foreign correspondent at yesterday’s march by a few thousand female supporters of former president Levon Ter-Petrossian remarked that the move was a smart one. It was perfect for foreign news, he said. Another Western journalist agreed, specifically pointing out that riot police are less prone to violent suppression of such rallies when there are young women present.
[…]
Ter-Petrossian, an academic who rose to power riding high on dissent within Soviet Armenia at the end of the 1980s, is also a skilled orator and a considered a master at exploiting such situations as well as destabilizing the situation in even the most authoritarian of environments, as I wrote on my Armenia Election Monitor 2008.
The rallies, such as one staged today, have encouraged many of Ter-Petrossian's supporters, and especially those now living outside of the country. Even though in swoops staged by masked National Security Service (NSS) agents, their . One of them is Artmika at Unzipped.
[…]
Whether current ruling regime will eventually manage to break down these protests, remains to be seen. They can only do it by imposing Stalinist methods (they already started – arrests, Bolshevik style propaganda…).
The fact that they lost already is out of question.
Archuk's Blog is a and and says that reliable information is scarce.
There is a lot of confusion in Armenia today. Information and misinformation flows follow each other – it is becoming harder to distinguish truth from lies. Protests continue in Yerevan’s Freedom Square, where opposition candidate, First President of Armenia Levon Ter-Petrossian’s supporters demand recognition of their candidate’s victory, although there was no objective indication throughout the electoral process, that Ter-Petrossian’s claims are true.
[…]
A very large part of voters, who are fed up with the incumbent authorities […] are still not ready to support Ter-Petrossian either, but would otherwise support anything that is an expression of opposition to the current regime and condemnation of election fraud. […] In this respect, I guess it would have been a wiser move, if Ter-Petrossian stopped claiming his dubious victory, and instead demanded justice and new elections – I mean – who can be against justice, even if calls to restore it come from a controversial figure like Ter-Petrossian?
[…]
A week after the 19 February presidential election in Armenia, that appears to be the situation with Ter-Petrossian hoping to attract the greater part of society, fed up as it is with high levels of corruption despite record economic growth, to his rallies. Meanwhile, as both the opposition and government apply pressure on officials to side with them, the scenario of post-election revolution in Armenia looks closer than its ever been.
However, when and how this will end is still not yet known. For now, the advantage appears to lie with Ter-Petrossian even though the international community and media does not appear to support his attempt at post-election regime change. On the other hand, bloggers such as The Armenian Observer still fear that it might all end in violence with a state of emergency being declared in the country.
Marilisa Lorusso's Blog calmly assesses the situation and says that how post-election events play out is not yet certain.
[…] It’s hard to say that in the last 10 years Ter-Petrosyan made the general public regret too much that he was no longer the President, and that a overwhelming majority of population is ready to follow him in his “struggle till the end”. […] Those who backed his run stand by him, but it’s hard to foresee, with international recognition of acceptably free and fair elections, if such a strategy can lead to a stroke, as he seems to expect.
But, as the first president and radical opposition leader appeals to the Constitutional Court, and as the authorities show signs of resorting to more draconian methods to stop opposition protests, some observers expect this week to shed light on what the eventual outcome might be. Interestingly, unlike past elections in Armenia, that will undoubtedly be first discussed on the Internet.
Photos: © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2007-8
Share This
Random Posts
