[CivilSoc] Recent Armenian Election "Not Democratic," But Kotcharian is President

[Moderator]

The following item comes from a weekly e-letter of the Robert Schuman
Foundation, based in Paris.  The foundation's e-letter is highly
informative; one can subscribe to it from the foundation's web site:
www.robert-schuman.org.
ROBERT KOTCHARIAN IS RE-ELECTED PRESIDENT
The Armenian President Robert Kotcharian, who was the election's major
favourite was re-elected as head of the country during the second round of
the presidential election. The Armenians confirmed the first round vote -
when Robert Kotcharian nearly clinched victory by winning 48.23% of the
votes cast -, and thereby offering a landslide victory to the outgoing
President who won 67.5% of the vote against the 32.5% won by his adversary
Stepan Demirtchian (Armenia Popular Party). The latter won 27.37% of the
vote during the first round of the election. The participation rate in the
second round was slightly higher than in the first round (64.5% versus
61.9%).
Although the outgoing President's victory is quite a comfortable one that
cannot really be questioned, however there remains major irregularities as
in the first round (ballot box cramming and other fraudulent activities)
were noticed during the second round by the Council of Europe and the
Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), that had
mobilised two hundred observers for this presidential election. Just before
the election Walter Schwimmer, the Council of Europe's General Secretary
warned of "an electoral collapse" that would surely provoke the occurrence
of more incidents. The head of the OSCE's mission, Peter Eicher said he was
"disappointed" with the way the second round of the election had been run.
"The Presidential election did not meet international standards set for
democratic election," he declared when the results were announced.
The day after the presidential election several thousand Armenian opposition
supporters demonstrated in the streets of the capital Erevan to protest
against the election's validity that they consider to be marred by electoral
fraud. Stepan Demirtchian supporters had already challenged the first round
results for the same reason. The Armenian Popular Party's candidate had
already declared that he did not accept the first round results the day
before the second round. "We intend to continue our fight", he confirmed on
6th March, "and we shall ask the Constitutional Court to invalidate the
results". For the time being the demonstrations have all been peaceful.
The man from Nagorny Karabakh is therefore starting his second mandate as
head of Armenia. Robert Kotcharian, who was born in Stepanakert, the
"capital" of Nagorny Karabakh, was a member of the Soviet Communist Party
before being elected to the presidency of the Defence Committee of Nagorny
Karabakh in 1992. He then became the leader in the fight for the region's
independence that led to war between Azerbaijan and Armenia.... This war
caused the death of over 30,000 people and hundreds of thousands of refugees
until the ceasefire that was signed in May 1994.
In 1997, Robert Kotcharian was called to Erevan by President Levon Ter
Petrossian to head the Armenian government; the latter was in favour of
finding a peaceful solution to the conflict but was subject to nationalist
pressure. In February 1998, Parliament forced the President to resign and on
30th March of the same year, Robert Kotcharian took the supreme office. His
first mandate brought Armenia relative stability and a return of economic
growth even though the population's standard of living remained very low and
emigration stayed high (around 800,000 Armenians have left the country in
the last decade). And finally the Nagorny Karabakh problem has still not
been settled.
Robert Kotcharian who was re-elected by a wide margin but not according to
the democratic standards, will have to face the political tension that came
to light during this presidential election. Above all he will have the
difficult task of continuing the country's economic recovery and succeeding
in enabling the Armenians really to take advantage of the results of growth.
Corinne Deloy
Robert Schuman Foundation
----------------------------------
Results of the second rounds of the presidential election on 5th March:
Participation : 64.5%
Candidates' % of votes cast: Robert Kotcharian: 67.5%, Stepan Demirtchian:
32.5%
Election Data Source: Associated Press