THE DOUBTFUL CAREER OF THE FORMER TURNER

Although the parliamentary elections in Armenia will be held only on 12 May, an event that determines the disposition of forces in this country "in earnest and for a long time" has already happened. President Robert Kocharyan has appointed Serzh Sarkisyan as prime minister, who previously worked as defence minister and secretary of the Security Council. Moreover, after the death of Andranik Margaryan, his predecessor in the post of prime minister, he also heads the Republican Party of Armenia. It was the political council of the party that nominated Sarkisyan for the post of prime minister.

De jure the former defence minister will head the government only till the parliamentary elections of 12 May. However, Sarkisyan hardly became first acting and then "real" prime minister just to painlessly hand over power to another official, putting an end to his own political career. His rise has been too swift in the recent period and he is spoken about way too often as Robert Kocharyan's successor after the latter's term in office expires. Observers both in Armenia and abroad have no doubts that control over the government will allow the "Karabakhis" to make full use of the administrative resources not only in the parliamentary, but also in the presidential elections where Sarkisyan has already been declared "the favourite".

For the time being, only Moscow has expressed its attitude to the new premier. Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov expressed confidence that the new premier will work to strengthen relations with Russia. The member of the Russian Public Chamber and director of the Institute for Strategic Research, Sergey Markov, has been even franker. In his opinion, there is probably no post-Soviet country where no attempts would be made to use "coloured revolution" technologies that serve as a method of seizing power in the 21st century. Markov is sure that the Armenian opposition is also preparing a "coloured" scenario just in case, which will hardly be implemented because Armenia is not experiencing a deep political crisis as did Ukraine before the "Orange Revolution". Unlike Leonid Kuchma in that period, Robert Kocharyan still has a high rating. Besides that, the Armenian opposition does not have such prominent leaders as Viktor Yushchenko or Mikhail Saakashvili in Georgia. Talking about the expected results of the parliamentary elections and Robert Kocharyan's possible successor, Sergey Markov said: "The most likely presidential candidate is Defence Minister Serzh Sarkisyan who will be nominated by the Republican Party. The most important thing here is for the Republican Party to successfully end its parliamentary campaign. In this case, it will nominate Sarkisyan for president and he will win."

The situation is somewhat more difficult with the priorities of "pro-Western forces" which everyone says will debut or triumph in the forthcoming elections in Armenia, especially as disappointment in the results of the alliance with Russia is already noticeable in Armenia. The deputy speaker of the country's parliament and one of the leaders of the ARF Dashnaktsutyun, Vaan Ovanesyan, said in his interview with the Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta that "Russia's tough pragmatism causes perplexity in Armenia". The deputy pointed out that "Armenian society has questions that have not been answered". "For example, Russia's energy policy is very pragmatic. Of course, we find flexible schemes of cooperation, but the possibility of finding such schemes is limited. For this reason, Russia's tough pragmatism causes perplexity in Armenia where a Russian military base is stationed. In this regard, many opposition groups are going to the May elections exactly with this question: Does the presence of the Russian military base guarantee our security? They are raising the issue of complete re-orientation of Armenia's foreign policy. This does not affect state policy yet, but moods should be taken into consideration," Ovanesyan pointed out.

In addition, the adoption of the law on dual citizenship might have a serious influence on the disposition of forces against this background. Now representatives of the large and active Armenian diaspora abroad can also participate in the elections. According to the executive director of the Armenian National Committee of American (ANCA), Aram Ambarian, "dual citizenship is a new chance for strengthening relations between the diaspora and the homeland, for strengthening Armenian identity in the whole world, and an important incentive for the democratic and national aspirations of the Armenian nation". At the same time, it is clear that "the diaspora" is also quite a logical channel of Western influence on the situation in Armenia, and it would be na?ve to suppose that no-one will use it.

In any case, against the economic, political and military support that Armenia is getting from Russia, Ovanesyan's accusations sound at least unfair. But alas, this is not an obstacle to "campaigning". Another matter is that at the most decisive moment, the "pro-Western forces" in Armenia lost their charismatic leader. In theory, the leader of the Orinats Yerkir Party and former speaker of the Armenian parliament, Artur Bagdasaryan, could play this role. However, having lost the "decisive battle" to Torosyan, he can hardly count on revenge in the current situation in Armenia. Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan who has already hinted at his ambitions can also be regarded as a logical candidate for the "pro-Western forces", but in Armenian realities, the main post at the Foreign Ministry is not the post from which you can jump into the presidential chair, especially as the prime minister is against such a "career".

As for Serzh Sarkisyan, his biography gives a lot of food for thought because, as is known, every politician, after coming to power, brings in his own style of leadership. According to the Russian media, Sarkisyan's biography looks boring and even slightly decent. He was born on 30 June 1954 in Nagorny Karabakh. In 1979, he graduated from the faculty of philology of Yerevan State University. In 1975-79, he worked as a turner at the Yerevan electric-technical factory. In 1972-74, he served in the Soviet army. Even the Karabakh stage of his biography looks quite bloodless, according to journalists. In 1989-93, the future defence minister of Armenia headed the "committee of the Nagorny Karabakh self-defence forces". In 1990, on the basis of the same "miatsum" resolution, he was elected a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of Soviet Armenia.

In fact, according to information leaked to the press, Serzh Sarkisyan joined the ultra-nationalist underground in Armenia in the 1970s. In any other situation, such a point in his biography would allow the fledgling prime minister to talk about it with pride just like the late Andranik Markaryan never missed a chance to remind everyone that in the 1970s, he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment for "anti-Soviet activities". But in the case of Sarkisyan, everything was different. He was soon sighted by the KGB and then, according to some information, played the role of "a bug" in the cell of Stepan Zatikyan who was charged with bombing the Moscow metro in 1977. The KGB then easily found out that the explosions had been carried out not by "a separate fighting group", as the terrorists themselves tried to present it, but were a result of the work of the wide ASALA network operating in Soviet Armenia. However, the KGB did not "uproot" it. Moscow preferred "making a deal" with the terrorists and using the "relations" between the Armenian KGB and ASALA to "contact" its partners from international terrorism, control and use "gold smuggling" through Yerevan airport and so on. In turn, ASALA promised not to "canonize" its militants who were sentenced to death by the court and not to exact revenge on them. Then, in Nagorny Karabakh, Serzh Sarkisyan was regarded as one of the organizers of "ethnic cleansing" against Azerbaijanis, including the Khojaly tragedy. Finally, in 1995 he headed Armenia's Main Department of National Security. We should point out that this organization bears responsibility for organizing terrorist attacks in Azerbaijani territory and for training Sadval militants who organized a bloody tragedy on the Baku metro. Moreover, it was Sarkisyan who, according to many analysts, played the leading role in the "creeping coup" of 1997-98 when Armenia's first president, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, was removed from power and replaced by Robert Kocharyan. At that time, against the background of a series of mysterious political assassinations that accompanied "the division of power", he put to shame Armenian journalists who wrote about "killers" from Karabakh and suspicious cars with Karabakh numbers.

Now Armenia is discussing a new sensational assassination attempt - this time on the life of Vardan Gukasyan, mayor of Armenia's second largest city - Gyumri. All this happened on the Yerevan-Gyumri highway near the town of Ashtarak when Vardan Gukasyan and his entourage were on their way back from Yerevan. In Yerevan, the Gyumri mayor took part in a session of the Council of the Republican Party of Armenia during which Serzh Sarkisyan's candidacy was nominated for the post of Armenian prime minister. The mayor's motorcade came under automatic gunfire from unknown people traveling in a grey "jeep" without a registration number. As a result, the mayor's driver and two of his bodyguards were killed, while Vardan Gukasyan himself, his deputy Gagik Manukyan and four others were wounded. It proved impossible to apprehend the assailants. At the same time, some analysts say the death of Armenian Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan from a heart attack was not accidental at all as it "made way" for Serzh Sarkisyan at the right time. As is known, for some professionals it is not difficult at all to present someone's "elimination" as a death from a heart attack, especially if we bear in mind that Levon Ter-Petrosyan's brother Telman, director of Razdanmash - an enterprise that supplied Russian weapons to Serbia bypassing UN sanctions during the Balkan war, also died of a heart attack several years ago. After that, almost all those involved in the scandal surrounding secret Russian arms supplies to Armenia died one after another in bizarre circumstances. We have no doubts what methods will be used in Armenian politics during the "election campaign" this time.