THE PRICE OF THE "VOTE"

The elections to the National Assembly of Armenia were held on 12 May, and we can say that they were unfair and far removed from democratic principles and norms. Indeed, at a time when the pro-government political forces were carrying out their election campaign, long before the start of the official part of this campaign, all the TV channels of Armenia were closed to opposition representatives. Even during the official part of the election campaign (from 8 April to 10 May), there were no equal opportunities for all parties, because all airtime was taken by representatives of pro-government forces.

These elections saw record charges for political campaign advertisements for parties and candidates running in the first-past-the-post constituencies. The price of a one-minute advertisement varied from 280 to 500 US dollars, which is a lot of money in Armenia, where the minimum monthly salary is about 40 US dollars. What is more, in almost all cities and districts of the country, private regional TV companies were banned from broadcasting the political advertisements of opposition parties and their members were deprived of the opportunity to speak and communicate with the population.

Moreover, on election day, 12 May, Armenian voters were paid to vote for pro-government parties. The scale of this was so large that it surprised even the most experienced local observers.

The voters actively attended both opposition rallies and the mass events staged by the pro-government parties. The only difference was that opposition rallies were attended by people voluntarily, while the authorities' events were compulsory (if you had refused to attend, you might have lost your job, and students might have been expelled from university). As the activity of opposition rallies increased, the risk of open confrontation between the authorities and the opposition increased as well. On 9 May this even caused clashes - the police dispersed demonstrators who had gathered outside the building of the National Security Service of Armenia.

However, an even greater confrontation was observed in the relations between pro-government parties. A general election had never taken place in Armenia against the background of such violence and with such a high number of serious offences. Contradictions in this camp turned into the murder of various criminal bosses, beatings, explosions at political party offices, arrests, shootings and other forms of violence.

We should point out that the election developments in Armenia were monitored by representatives of the OSCE and Council of Europe observation missions who also registered a large number of violations. But in general, they assessed the elections as another step towards developed democracy. We think that such a superficial approach from the observers is related to the fact that they concentrated their attention on polling stations on election day. On election day, 12 May, the number of violations at polling stations was really not so high as during the 2003 elections. This time the main violations were registered outside polling stations - people were paid for their votes and driven to polling stations in buses. The mass bribery of voters, which covered almost the entire country, is a new phenomenon in the reality of Armenian.

International observers from the CIS were also invited to the country and recognized the parliamentary elections as free, open and transparent. In Armenian society, there is a well-established opinion that CIS observers always come with a text prepared in advance, which is why the opinion of these observers is not so authoritative in this country. Armenian citizens have the impression that international observers, including those from the CIS, OSCE and Council of Europe, as one politician figuratively said, "spent their time eating and drinking in a restaurant and did not monitor the elections".

Unlike Western observers, local observers are far more critical of the parliamentary elections. For example, 18 well-known non-government organizations of Armenia issued a joint statement that listed all the violations registered by the authorities - bribes, blackmail, violations of terms of PR campaigns, pressure on voters, absence of polling booths, open voting, simultaneous presence of more than 15 voters at a polling station, stuffing of ballot boxes, dead souls on voters' lists and so on.

We should point out that three members of the Central Electoral Commission of Armenia from opposition parties - Feliks Khachatryan (People's Party of Armenia), Zaven Pluzyan (National Unity) and Sona Sarkisyan (Orinats Yerkir) did not sign the protocol on the results of the parliamentary elections. Feliks Khachatryan called for the election results to be deemed invalid. He said that mass violations took place during the elections.

People were very active in these elections. The overall number of those who cast their votes, according to the CEC, totalled 1,389,521 voters, or 59.9 per cent of their overall number. The opposition maintains that this is an overstated figure which proves total ballot-rigging. The opposition proposed its own explanation for such a high turnout. They said that the authorities had printed tens of thousands of false passports for voters living outside Armenia, but with photos of other people who voted for the pro-government parties during the elections. It is clear that in this situation, international observers would not notice anything because it is not their duty to check the authenticity of voters' passports.

According to the preliminary results of the 12 May elections, the Republican Party of Armenia (headed by Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisyan) gained about 32.8 per cent of the votes, the Prosperous Armenian Party (the party of MP and oligarch Gagik Tsarukyan) - 14.7 per cent, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation - Dashnaktsutyun - 12.7 per cent, the Orinats Yerkir Party (headed by the former speaker of parliament, Artur Bagdasaryan) - 6.8 per cent and Heritage (headed by the former foreign minister, Raffi Ovannesyan) - 5.8 per cent. According to Armenia's Electoral Code, parties should gain at least five per cent of the votes in order to make it into the parliament.

As a result, the Republican Party of Armenia will get 61 mandates in the country's supreme legislative body (41 under the proportional, and 20 under the first-past-the-post system), the Prosperous Armenian Party - 26 (18 plus 8), the Armenian Revolutionary Federation - Dashnaktsutyun - 16 (16 plus zero), Orinats Yerkir and Heritage - 10 (8 plus 2) and 7 (7 plus zero) mandates respectively. The Dashink union gained one seat under the first-past-the-post system and another 11 seats will be taken by independent MPs.

All this goes to show that the Republican Party of Armenia, Prosperous Armenia and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation - Dashnaktsutyun gained the overwhelming majority of seats in the Armenian parliament. The opposition Heritage Party gained only seven of the 131 seats. All this means that we should not expect any significant changes in Armenia's domestic and foreign policy because the Armenian authorities managed, by hook or by crook, to reproduce their power. What is more, in connection with the presidential elections scheduled for January-February 2008, the incumbent authorities will focus all their attention on getting the result they need, i.e. on Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisyan's election as president. To be honest, it is not an easy thing to do, if we take account of Armenian citizens' discontent with the incumbent regime's domestic policy, the scale of corruption and the difficult social state of the overwhelming majority of Armenian citizens.

The radical opposition, such as the Impeachment bloc (leader Nikol Pashinyan), the Democratic Path Party (leader Manuk Gasparyan), New Times (leader Aram Karapetyan) and Republic (headed by the former prime minister, Aram Sarkisyan) had an alternative action programme, which is why the Armenian authorities used all possible administrative and financial resources to keep these political forces out of parliament.

As for the Armenian political opposition, in the old parliament it was represented by the Justice bloc and the National Unity Party. These political forces held pro-Russian views and had old stereotypes, looking upon Turkey as an enemy. They did not look beyond Russia for the security of the Armenian people, and their position on the Karabakh issue was almost the same as that of the incumbent authorities. The new parliament has two parties - Orinats Yerkir and Heritage - that claim to be in opposition. We should point out that, immediately after the announcement of the results of the elections in Armenia, statements appeared saying that the new opposition in the Armenian parliament is oriented to the West. Setting aside the controversy of these hasty conclusions, we have to say that the number of seats gained by the opposition is so small that they will not be able to influence Robert Kocharyan's foreign and domestic policy.

Among the political forces ouside parliament, only the Impeachment bloc, the Democratic Path Party and the Armenian Pan-National Movement (leader Ararat Zurabyan) and Republic have a position that can be regarded as an alternative to the position of the incumbent authorities. They believe that the Armenian people should belong to the European family of nations and that integration into the EU and NATO are important directions for Armenia's foreign policy. Other forces outside parliament, including the opposition parties, have programmes that are not so different from the programmes of major pro-government parties. That is to say that, just like the pro-government parties, they are in favour of Armenia's pro-Russian orientation, see no possibility of a compromise with Azerbaijan on the Karabakh issue, are not ready to establish relations with Turkey without pre-conditions and so on.