GENERAL ELECTIONS IN ARMENIA: PROGRESS AND IRREGULARITIES
The elections of the 5th National Assembly of Armenia held on May 6 ended in a landslide victory for the ruling Republican Party (RP) and its coalition partner, the Prosperous Armenia (PA) party. Of nine political parties participating, six entered Parliament including the radical opposition bloc led by the country's first President, Levon Ter-Petrossian. Many reports have been made available about election violations but these have seemingly not influenced the overall results. The fate of the future government is also yet unknown. These elections were the cleanest held in independent Armenia so far and resulted in a consolidated position for the RP in the next parliament.
BACKGROUND: On May 6, the ballot-casting at the regular parliamentary elections took place in Armenia. 41 members of the 131-seat one-chamber legislative body were elected through majority constituencies and 90 mandates were distributed through a proportional vote. As the National Assembly of the fifth convocation was elected, the official results provided 69 seats (including 28 seats won by majority voting) for the RP led by President Serzh Sargsyan, whereas in the current parliament it has a faction of 62 seats. Its major coalition partner Prosperous Armenia won 37 seats, up from its 26 seats in the current parliament. The Country of Law (CL) party, another member of the current ruling coalition, went from 8 to 6 seats; the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF, known as Dashnaktsutiun) went from 16 to 5 seats; and the Heritage (Zharangutiun) party went from 7 t o5 seats.
A new phenomenon is the appearance of the 7-member faction of the Armenian National Congress (ANC), a radical opposition bloc led by the country's first President Ter-Petrossian. Ter-Petrossian himself and the leader of another party in the ANC have refused to take the deputy mandates and as a result, former Prime Minister Hrant Bagratian and former military prosecutor Gagik Jhanguirian will enter the National Assembly. Three smaller parties which took part in the elections, including the Armenian Communist party and a socialist group called Democratic Party, failed to attract enough votes to pass the 5 percent threshold and will not be represented in the National Assembly.
Election Day was preceded by a month-long pre-election campaign which was recognized as unprecedented. In an otherwise strongly pro-government broadcast media climate, parties of the ruling coalition and the opposition had equal access to media outlets for presenting their programs throughout April. The voter turnout on May 6 was as high as slightly over 62 percent. This was somewhat surprising as many of the 2.5 million voters were absent from the county due to Armenia’s high emigration rate but police said they had no means to determine whether a particular person is in the country. The new Electoral Code forbade voting outside the country (with the exception of diplomats) to minimize falsifications. This activated rumors that the authorities would use the names of those absent to inflate the number of votes for the coalition parties.
Much discussion was devoted to the special ink, which according to a recent amendment of the election legislation must applied in voter’s passports to prevent repeated voting. Under the Law, this ink must vanish in 12 hours (when the ballot-casting is over). However, complains were raised in the morning of May 6 that in many voting stations this ink vanished in minutes. The Central Electoral Commission (CEC) explained that the ink bottles must be shaken before the ink is used and, which apparently solved the problem. However, this also gave rise to rumors of falsification.
IMPLICATIONS: Most observers, both representing European organizations and from the CIS countries, indicated that this election marked a new stage in the history of Armenia. The Armenian leadership also received positive messages from the U.S. State Department, the EU High Representative Catherine Ashton, and Štefan Füle, the EU Commissioner for the European Neighborhood policy. Yet, many in Armenia present cases of irregularities during the ballot-casting. Sociometer, a local opinion poll company, claims that irregularities were mainly observed during the majority voting and that their average impact is 3 percent only. Hence according to Sociometer, these irregularities did not have a significant influence on the outcome of the elections. The following facts seemingly confirm that the authorities have made their best to ensure open, competitive and fair elections
First, there is a generally confirmed view that the obvious irregularities seen in previous years, such as ballot box stealing or falsification during accounting, were not applied during the May 6 elections. Both observers and reporters shared the impression that the politicians struggled for the real votes of the people. Violations were mostly local initiatives or a consequence of insufficient preparations by election officials whose quantity was above ten thousand.
Second, according to three independent opinion polls held in early April, one by Gallup International, one by the Russian Center of Opinion Polls and one by Gallup Europe, RP was reported to enjoy the support of some 34 percent of voters, whereas PA had nearly 28 percent of the votes. The four followers of these parties hovered near the mark of 5 percent of the voters. Hence, the authorities led by President Sargsyan had little reason to manipulate the election. According to later polls (the results from the last polls were reported on April 28), the leading parties had improved their positions even more, the support of RP exceeding 40 percent. According to official data, more than 44 percent of the voters supported RA on May 6.
Third, during the vote of May 6, Gallup International performed the first ever exit-poll in Armenia. According to its results presented 2.5 hours after closing of the voting stations, RP had won the support of 43 percent of the voters, PA won 29.3 percent, and ANC won 6.4 percent. Some 80 percent of those supporting RP and PA had mentioned that they had behaved similarly during the parliamentary elections of 2007. However, the voting pattern could not be fully determined as more than 10,000 people out of 22,000 asked (over 45 percent) rejected to take part in the exit-poll.
Another indication that the Armenian authorities did not encourage election violations is the commitment of the EU to extend its assistance to Armenia if the country showed clear improvements in its election conduct. The reactions of the European observers and those from Brussels indicate that President Sargsyan has fulfilled this objective and that the EU assistance to Armenia may increase.
As in 2007, the election results allow the RP to form a government alone. However, in 2007 it did form a coalition with three other parties. Now, ten days after the vote, there is no clarity concerning the future government, the possibility of a ruling coalition with other parties (the simplest way is preserving the current coalition between RP, PA and CL) or even the question of who will be the new Prime Minister.
CONCLUSIONS: As discussions on technical irregularities, mainly concerning the insufficient education of local election officials continue, the parliamentary elections of May 6 indicate that the RP led by President Sargsyan has fulfilled two major tasks. First, it has organized the cleanest elections held in independent Armenia so far and, second, it has regained a leading position in the next parliament. This will enable it to appoint a Prime Minister, to form a new government and to continue implementing its projects.
AUTHOR’S BIO: Haroutiun Khachatrian is an analyst on political and economic issues based in Yerevan, Armenia.
