ARMENIA: NO CHANGE EXPECTED TO STATUS QUO FOLLOWING ELECTIONS

Reports suggest that no surprises should be expected from Armenian Presidential elections which are to be held tomorrow. President Serzh Sarksyan, the handpicked successor of former President Robert Kocharian, who is coming to the end of his first five-year term in power is on course to further solidify his stranglehold over Armenian politics if he gains the more than 60 per cent of the popular vote of which he has been projected by election opinion pollsters operating within the country. The 60 per cent tally, if reports are to be believed, will see Mr. Sarksyan win a greater percentage of the votes than he did in 2008.

 

The lead up to the elections has been plagued by allegations of electoral malpractice, fraud and lack of transparency in the system. The lack of confidence in the system, allied with further concerns about the credibility of the elections have inevitably led to fears of low voter turnout, the result of boycotts by eligible voters. These worries have been recognised by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe who stated, following last month’s visit to the country, that some of the major political parties which had been “strongly expected to present Presidential candidates, chose not to do so because of their lack of trust in the conduct of the election.”

 

It would be unfair to highlight the pre-election difficulties facing the nation without noting that the country has successfully circumvented the wide scale disturbance which ensued in the course of the last Presidential elections held in February 2008. Nevertheless, recent elections have been tainted by the rather unsavoury assassination attempt on one of the election candidates, Paruyr Hayrikyan, who was shot in the shoulder on 31^st January 2013. Luckily the bullet missed Mr. Hayrikyan’s vitals and he has lived to tell the proverbial tale. Further controversy and questions have also been raised about the credibility of the elections with one candidate, Arman Melikyan boycotting the election on the basis that the results had already been predetermined, and another, Andrias Ghukasyan, embarking on a hunger strike and seeking the annulment of the incumbent’s candidacy on account of alleged malpractice.

 

The country, which won independence from its parent nation the Soviet Union in 1991, has failed to live up to the promise which many believed it once possessed pre-independence with poverty and unemployment remaining rife and without any effective programmes being devised by the government to tackle these twin ills. Its economic situation has not been eased by long running conflicts with its neighbours, namely Turkey and Azerbaijan, which has in effect resulted in the imposition of economic blockades which has hampered its growth and development.

 

Its conflict with Turkey emanates from Turkey’s refusal to acknowledge allegations of genocide perpetrated by their troops against ethnic Armenians between 1915 and 1917. Armenia’s dispute with Azerbaijan on the other hand, is the result of claims over the border region of Nagorno-Karabakh. A fragile ceasefire has remained in place since 1994’s ceasefire between both nations. Against the background of both internal and external turmoil facing the nation, one hopes that next week’s election passes off peacefully and without incident. If this occurs, it may well set the country on the road to achieving the promises which many felt it held pre-independence and immediately after its independence in 1991.