British Helsinki Human Rights Group Observer's Report March 25, 1998 ARMENIA 1998: Presidential Elections Background to the elections On 16 March the republic of Armenia held its second presidential election in two years. The election was called after President Levon Ter Petrosian announced his resignation on 3 February 1998. With the Gulf crisis fast developing many people failed to notice this important development. However, changes of regime in the Caucasus region cause understandable anxiety throughout the international community – especially among the large number of businessmen involved in Caspian oil exploration. Ter Petrossian’s fall was put down to his willingness to cooperate with the OSCE’s mediation efforts (the Minsk process) in finding a settlement to the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh that failed to respect the regions territorial integrity. The fact that the leading candidate in the forthcoming election should be the former president of Karabakh, Robert Kocharian increases latent fears that hostilities could break out again between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the status of the territory. For many Armenians Kocharian represents the strong sense of national identity that accompanied the country’s early days of independence and the success of the Karabakh movement in uniting the nation. It remains to be seen whether or not his possible victory in the March election leads to further instability in the region. Kocharian’s chances of victory will have been improved by the legalizing of the banned Dashnak Party and the release from prison of its leaders. This party has always been the foremost nationalist movement even during Soviet days when its members were dispersed as far away as the US and the Middle East. The party is, needless to say, hard-line on the Karabakh question. However, although Karabakh may be the central issue for Westerners there are other issues that concern Armenians in the forthcoming election. Levon Ter Petrossian has gained a reputation for arrogance and his government is accused of widespread corruption including cronyism and the favouring of family members. The economy has failed to deliver an improved standard of living for ordinary people. This has to be set against the fact that for some time Armenia was the third largest recipient of US aid due, no doubt, to the influence of its large and vocal diaspora. However, this has made little difference to the country’s prosperity - few Americans have moved to Armenia to help the process along. Parliamentary election, 1995 The two elections held since independence have been murky affairs. The 1995 parliamentary elections and constitutional referendum were seriously flawed. In the run-up to the election the leading opposition Dashnak Party was banned and its leaders imprisoned. There were numerous incidents of violence and murder. In the aftermath International observers refused to condemn the poll outright producing the strange formula that the election was "free but not fair": a verdict that has both puzzled and annoyed Armenians ever since. Presidential election, 1996 On 22 September 1996 Ter Petrossian was re-elected president in a contest that many Armenians considered fraudulent. The tenacity of the Armenian opposition demonstrated that his main opponent, Vazgen Manoukian was the real winner with over 60% of the vote. Official results, however, gave Ter Petrossian 51.75%, just enough to scrape to victory. In the days that followed the declaration of the results large crowds gathered and stormed the parliament leading to the arrest of many opposition activists; an appeal to the Constitutional Court failed to overturn the results. BHHRG observers noted the following in both parliamentary and presidential elections: * The Armenian media was biased against the opposition. In the presidential election Ter Petrossian’s candidature was shamelessly promoted and fears sown in the population of civil unrest should he fail to be elected. * Election registers were outdated containing many names of dead people, particularly in the earthquake area in the north of the country. * Police as well as plainclothes personnel were omnipresent both inside and outside polling stations thus being a potential source of intimidation to voters. * Multiple voting was widespread. * Counts were often shambolic and less than transparent. However, unlike many countries in the former Soviet Union ordinary Armenians are politically aware and more likely to become involved in the electoral process. This was demonstrated in the parliamentary elections by the success of the Vote Armenia domestic observer group which managed to disperse its people to polling stations all over the country. This group was prevented from monitoring the presidential election in 1996.It is to be hoped that domestic observers are accredited by the CEC in Yerevan for March’s election as their commitment and hard work was exemplary (and near unique) in 1995. Report on the First Round The resignation of President Levon Ter-Petrosian on 3 February, 1998 came as a surprise to the international community. The second presidential election to be held within two years had to be called within 40 days. This challenge came as hopes were growing that the OSCE-sponsored Minsk peace process might, at last, be close to resolving the status of the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh in neighbouring Azerbaijan. Ter-Petrosian seemed ready to compromise over the region’s status and this, many believe, led to his downfall. Renewed unrest in Georgia and continuing speculation over the construction and development of pipelines transporting oil from the Caspian Sea added to international concerns over Armenia’s political development. However, many analysts also believed that Armenia had suffered a fundamental crisis in political legitimacy as the legacy of a parliamentary election and constitutional referendum in July 1995 and a presidential election in September 1996 that both domestic politicians and international organizations now concede were deeply flawed. BHHRG monitors were in Armenia for both elections – the Group has also reported on the state of human rights in the country. The BHHRG sent 4 observers to monitor the March poll. They held meetings with election officials and with a range of parties and other organizations supporting the 12 candidates standing for the presidency. On election day itself (16 March) two observers travelled south to Ararat and the surrounding region while the other two travelled north to Giumri and Ashtarak visiting polling stations en route. There were 12 candidates. The two leading contenders were the prime minister of Armenia (and former president of Karabakh) Robert Kocharyan and Karen Demirchyan who was First Secretary of the Armenian Communist Party until 1988. Since then Demirchyan had become a businessman running the Armelektromash factory in Yerevan. His candidature came as something as a surprise to many people but he was soon regarded as the main challenger to Kocharyan overtaking Vazgen Manukyan who might, understandably, have thought he was unfairly denied victory in 1996. In the end no candidate received the necessary 50% + 1 share of the vote and a second round of voting will take place on 30 March. The BHHRG reached the following conclusions after the first round: The Campaign Compared with the events that preceded the 1995 election in particular, this campaign was notable for the absence of intimidation (reported or real), not to mention unexplained shootings and explosions. The only really notable violent incident occurred in the southern town of Ararat where a rally addressed by the right-hand man of presidential candidate Vazgen Manoukian (Ter-Petrosian’s chief opponent in 1996 and the almost certain victor of that contest) descended into a brawl. Filaret Berikyan, a representative of Manoukian’s party on the Central Election Commission had his arm broken during the incident. However, four suspects were quickly arrested and charged and the town’s chief of police has been fired. There were many fewer posters for the candidates than in previous elections. The large, glossy portraits of Ter-Petrosian which were displayed everywhere in 1996 (often behind glass) created a strong reaction to ostentatious displays. Despite his lead in the opinion polls there were hardly any posters in central Yerevan for Robert Kocharyan; the greatest number of such posters were for the ‘surprise’ candidate, Karen Demirchyan. It was, therefore, rather bizarre to find leaflets for Kocharyan being distributed among passengers on the Armenian Airlines flight that brought many observers to Yerevan. Members of the Citizens’ Initiative, the organization nominating former Communist First Party Secretary, Karen Demirchyan, complained about the largely negative coverage of their candidate in the state-owned sections of the print and broadcast media. While these allegations have to some extent been endorsed by the European Institute for the Media this organization concluded that election broadcasting generally was fairer than it had been in the two previous elections. Demirchyan’s campaign team also made allegations about irregularities on the voter registers ( the inclusion of dead people in the lists) and the likelihood that refugees would vote even though they were legally proscribed from doing so. In fact, the Central Election Commission contradicted this saying that if refugees were registered as citizens of Armenia they could take part in the election. These allegations were repeated at Mr. Manoukian’s campaign headquarters on the day following the election. (Most refugees came from Azerbaijan before 1991 and therefore were legally entitled to vote in Armenia). The Conduct of Voting The overall impression on voting day itself, based on visits to some 26 polling stations in Yerevan, towns and rural areas was one of impartial and efficient election administration. In particular BHHRG observers noticed: * An absence of armed police or plain-clothes officers, both of which were very much in evidence in 1995 and 1996 and the source of many complaints by voters and electoral commission members who felt able to communicate their disquiet to observers. * The decision not to permit any balloting away from the polling-station itself (which also meant that there could be no mobile ballot box), required soldiers to vote alongside ordinary members of the public. In places like Ararat, where there are large Armenian (and Russian) military installations nearby, this led to upwards of 300 soldiers being registered at a single polling station. However, in all the cases we witnessed, voting was orderly and gave no rise to complaints from other voters or members of electoral commissions. * Privacy for voters was much improved by the provision of generous-sized voting-booths (or even entire rooms), as well as by a more straightforward process of registration. Although the final turn-out proved quite high, overcrowding in polling stations was simply not a problem. * We witnessed no instances of people with several passports trying to vote on behalf of others. Commission members were firm in their resolve to not permit this behaviour. Nor did we witness instances of family voting; both practices were widespread in 1995 and 1996. * Electoral commissions consisted of up to 20 members embracing all the parties represented in the election. Chairmen came from a range of different parties. However, as Mr. Demirchyan’s candidacy had not been proposed by any party this meant that, uniquely, he was only entitled to be represented by chosen proxies and/or observers. For this reason we made a point of talking to these where we could find them, which was at least four-fifths of the places visited. None of them had any complaint to make, though we were surprised by their tendency to be absent from proceedings after c. 18.00, something that somewhat undermines subsequent allegations of mass fraud and even violence. No other observers made complaints, apart from a lady from Mr. Manoukian’s party in Ashtarak who again raised the issue of refugee voting. * Copies of the election law in Armenian were widely and freely available. By contrast there were no campaign posters visible inside polling stations as there had been in both 1995 and 1996. In addition, we also observed a count in a polling-station in central Yerevan. The entire process took more than 4 hours, but, again, compared with the counts in 1995 which we had watched well into the night, work was completed efficiently and with good humour. (Victory in this particular precinct in a relatively "well-heeled" part of Yerevan went to Mr. Demirchyan, who took 582 votes against 443 for Mr. Kocharyan and 125 for Mr. Manoukian.) The Aftermath As it became clear in September 1996 that Ter-Petrosian would not accept the verdict of the electorate, crowds gathered outside the headquarters of the Central Electoral Commission, leading to violent clashes in which dozens of Armenians were injured. Notwithstanding, and despite a change of premises, the CEC took no evident precautions on this occasion against popular protest (as they might had serious fraud been intended), and the day after voting observers and journalists had no difficulty in walking round their office asking questions. True, results were slow to come in. But this was mainly because of the separate procedure of counting coupons (detached from the ballot-paper proper; a "control" mechanism built into the electoral system at the instigation of Western experts) being conducted at the district level. This in some ways sensible safeguard significantly delayed the release of results for large population centres like Yerevan. Frustrated by this delay, Mr. Demirchyan chose to "cry foul". In fact, the declaration he issued along with four other candidates (Paruyr-Hayrikyan, an imprisoned dissident during Demirchyan's rule of Armenia, later retracted his support claiming that Mr Demirchyan had refused to support an investigation of election abuses by supporters of any candidate) was released an hour before polls closed on Monday. Picked up and circulated by several news organizations, an impression was given that the electorate had again been cheated and that Armenia might be about to re-experience the violent events of 1996. Despite their indignant impatience at the slowness of the CEC, so far Demirchyan's office has been unable to provide evidence (or even details of time and p1ace) to substantiate their plentiful and colourful accusations of ballot-stuffing and count-rigging. Should such evidence be forthcoming, it should indeed be treated seriously by international bodies such as the OSCE and Council of Europe monitoring these elections. (Like Georgia and Azerbaijan, Armenia is currently trying to shake off its poor human rights record and join the Council of Europe.) However, it would be unfortunate if the OSCE over-compensated for its past indulgence to electoral fraud in Armenia by being hyper-critical now as the major powers are preoccupied with their oil-interests in Azerbaijan. If no compelling evidence of electoral malpractice can be produced, then it would be highly destabilizing either for international monitors to echo politicised charges or for the second-placed candidate to refuse to enter a run-off against Mr Kocharyan on 30 March. And after all its problems of recent years, further destabilization is probably the last thing Armenia needs. Results Robert Kocharyan 38.82% Karen Demirchyan 30.62% Vazgen Manukyan 12.22% Sergey Badalyan 11.02% Paruyr Hayrikyan 5.41% Using local polling data this Group’s observers will pay particular attention in the second round to districts and polling stations with anomolous results. First published on March 23, 1998 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Send mail to bhhrg@bhhrg.org with questions or comments about this report Copyright © 1997-1998 British Helsinki Human Rights Group Last modified: March 25, 1998