BETTER A SMALL FISH THAN AN EMPTY DISH

The presidential election in Armenia scheduled for 18 February will be held with virtually no competition. This opinion, like most other analysts, is shared by the head of the Armenian Analytical Centre on Globalization and Regional Cooperation, Stepan Grigoryan. In his view, the boycott of the election by the real opposition has dramatically increased the chances of the current head of state, and now, in contrast to the previous elections, Serzh Sargsyan will overcome his formal competitors relatively easily. Stepan Grigoryan substantiated his position by several factors in an interview with Region Plus.

- What is your prediction on the presidential election in Armenia?

- I think that Serzh Sargsyan will be easily re-elected president of Armenia for a second term. Of course, there is always a risk of force majeure situations, but their probability in this election is too small.

To understand why this situation has occurred, it is necessary to return to the parliamentary elections held in Armenia in May 2012. As a result of the elections then, five political parties and one bloc made it into the parliament in Armenia. The main opposition parties - the ANC, the ARF Dashnaktsutyun and Heritage - harshly criticized the elections, accusing the incumbent government of large-scale fraud, but did not boycott the newly-elected parliament and did not give up their seats. Interestingly, Prosperous Armenia, the former partner of the ruling party (the Republican Party), stood in the election as an opponent of the government, and after the election, refused to enter the pro-government coalition. This situation gave the hope that the Prosperous Armenia would nominate its candidate for the presidential election. Moreover, there were good reasons to expect the entire opposition political field of Armenia to mobilize around this party and its presidential candidate (especially as Prosperous Armenia won 38 seats in the parliamentary elections and has significant administrative and financial resources!).

However, in December 2012 Gagik Tsarukyan announced that his party would not nominate candidates in the presidential elections and would not support any other candidate. This statement was so unexpected and stunning that the leading opposition forces (the ANC and the ARF Dashnaktsutyun), which linked all their hopes to joint actions with the candidate from Prosperous Armenia, were unprepared to act independently in the current new situation. And this caused the ANC and Dashnaktsutyun to refuse to run in the presidential race, realizing how unrealistic it is to change their attitudes and reorganize themselves on the go in a short time.

In the end, after the expiry of the deadline for the nomination and registration of candidates for president of Armenia (14 January 2012), there were only eight candidates left: incumbent President Serzh Sargsyan; the leader of the Heritage Party, Raffi Ovanisyan; the chairman of the Freedom Party, Grant Bagratyan; the head of the National Self-Determination Association, Paruyr Ayrikyan; the head of National Accord, Aram Arutyunyan; the director of Radio Hay, Andreas Gukasyan; Arman Melikyan; and unemployed Vardan Setrakyan.

The list also shows that none of the abovementioned candidates can be a worthy rival for the current president of Armenia because there are no influential and major political forces behind them, not to mention that they have no significant financial and administrative resources. There are also serious doubts about the ability of these candidates to ensure the presence of their agents at all 1,930 polling stations to monitor the electoral process and prevent electoral fraud.

- How will the refusal of the Armenian National Congress to run in the elections affect their progress and objectivity of the results?

- Of course, in the absence of a clearly expressed opposition leader in the presidential elections in Armenia, the motivation that strict control will be necessary at polling stations on that day will be seriously weakened. Not to mention the fact that the level and quality of political debate will be reduced during the election campaign. In addition, Levon Ter-Petrosyan's failure to run in the presidential race caused serious divisions within the Armenian National Congress. A few months earlier, many political parties in it were adamantly opposed to cooperation with Prosperous Armenia, which caused some of them to quit the block. Therefore, it would be naive to expect the ANC, which is in crisis now, to be able to monitor the electoral process.

However, it appears that in this election, the Armenian authorities will have no need to actively use the administrative resource and resort to gross falsifications (which may cause international observers to give a negative assessment of the upcoming elections), as Serzh Sargsyan's advantage over other candidates is clear.

- Have all the conditions been created for holding free and fair elections in Armenia from a legal point of view? What is the position of the OSCE, the Council of Europe and other international organizations in this election?

- In principle, the electoral legislation of Armenia has repeatedly changed and improved, including with the participation of experts from the Council of Europe and the OSCE. So here we have no special problems, and the electoral law can continue to improve. So, perhaps, it would be good to introduce in the electoral law getting citizens' fingers ink-stained on election day, which would eliminate a second vote (this type of violation in Armenian elections is quite common). It would be possible to install video cameras in all polling stations, etc.

However, this is not the most important thing in our elections. The main thing is that the authorities do not always have the political will to hold truly free, fair and democratic elections. Although, for the sake of fairness, we should note that the parliamentary elections in Armenia in May 2012 took place in a much more transparent and competitive situation, which inspires certain optimism.

- Is it likely that the opposition will contest the results of the vote, as was the case in the last election in 2008?

- Such scenarios seem unlikely to me because the main opposition forces are not ready today to work together, including control the electoral process. In 2008, there was the powerful mobilization of opposition forces around the first president of Armenia, Levon Ter-Petrosyan. The opposition managed to gather one hundred thousand people in rallies at the time, which is not the case now, and the differences between the main opposition parties are evident.

- In what way can the presidential election affect the settlement of the Karabakh conflict?

- Of course, the current situation in the negotiations on Nagornyy Karabakh within the OSCE Minsk Group does not inspire much enthusiasm. The mutually tough rhetoric of the parties is also troubling, not to mention the massive militarization going on in the South Caucasus region. However, the future of the negotiations on the Karabakh issue within the OSCE Minsk can be influenced by the fact that now the degree of Serzh Sargsyan's legitimacy will be quite high, which means that he will be freer to act and may come up with new initiatives in this matter.