Armenia’s leading political groups are gearing up for next spring’s
parliamentary elections, which could determine who succeeds President Robert
Kocharian in 2008. A key issue surrounding the legislative vote is whether
Armenia will be able to shed its post-Soviet reputation for electoral fraud.

Armenian government officials and their allies insist that they will do their
best to make the vote free and fair. But their political opponents are
skeptical, believing instead that incumbent authorities are intent on
engineering a transfer of power from Kocharian to his most influential
associate, Defense Minister Serzh Sarkisian. The United States and the European
Union also have concerns about a possible repeat of the serious fraud that has
marred just about every Armenian election held over the past decade. [For
background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Officials in Yerevan hope to dispel those concerns with a package of amendments
to Armenia’s electoral code that are meant to forestall various voting
irregularities. Parliament approved the amendments in the first reading on
October 24, and they are now undergoing a review by Council of Europe legal
experts. One of them is designed to prevent ballot box stuffing by requiring
voters put their marked ballots into special envelops before casting them. Other
proposed changes would give more rights to election candidates’ proxies and
obligate election commissions to videotape the nationwide vote count and release
preliminary turnout figures within five hours of the polls’ closure.

"These amendments will make the electoral process in our country more
democratic," one of their authors, Samvel Nikoyan of the governing Republican
Party of Armenia (HHK), told fellow lawmakers.

The Armenian opposition is unconvinced, however, pointing to the authorities’
rejection of other amendments put forward by opposition parliamentarians. One
such proposal envisaged that Armenians going to the polls would have their
fingers marked by indelible ink to make it easier for election officials to
prevent multiple voting. Opposition leaders also claim that the changes in
electoral legislation will prove meaningless because the authorities lack the
"political will" to hold a democratic election and run the risk of losing power.

"These authorities have one aim: to retain power," Aram Sarkisian, a radical
leader of the opposition Justice alliance, told EurasiaNet. "The only way to
attain it is to rig elections. That is why we insist that in this country
democratic elections can take place only after a democratic revolution resulting
in regime change."

The HHK, of which Serzh Sarkisian is the unofficial leader, is the main source
of election-related concerns voiced by the opposition and even some
pro-Kocharian parties, notably the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF). They
already accused it of resorting to fraud to win the last parliamentary elections
held in 2003. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. HHK leaders do
not deny that victory in the upcoming polls is vital for the success of
Sarkisian’s reputed plans to succeed Kocharian, whose second term ends in 2008.
But they say that they will not seek to win at any cost.

Such assurances are clearly not taken at face value by other major political
forces. The ARF, the HHK’s junior partner in the governing coalition, warned
earlier this year that it will join the opposition camp if the 2007 polls, too,
fall short of democratic standards. Similar warnings have also been issued in
recent months by Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian, who has had to personally
deal with the international fallout from Armenia’s past flawed elections.
"Everyone must realize that we simply have no more room for holding bad
elections because this time the damage to our people would be not only moral,
but also material," he said in an October 19 interview with the Yerevan daily
Haykakan Zhamanak.

Oskanian alluded in particular to $235.6 million in additional economic
assistance which the United States administration has earmarked for Armenia
under its Millennium Challenge Account (MCA), a scheme designed to promote
political and economic reforms around the world. US officials indicate that
Yerevan has pledged to improve its human rights and democracy records in return.
"These are important commitments and the United States stands ready to help
Armenia to ensure that its upcoming elections are free and fair," Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice said during the signing of Armenia’s MCA compact in
Washington last March.

The European Union (EU), for its part, has made it clear that failure to meet
that standard would call into question Armenia’s forthcoming participation in
the European Neighborhood Policy program that entitles it to a privileged
relationship with the bloc. "If there are deficiencies [in the conduct of the
2007 elections], they will be noticed and there will be consequences," Finnish
Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja, whose country currently holds the EU’s rotating
presidency, warned after talks with Armenian leaders in Yerevan on October 2.

Both the US and EU have indicated their unease with the fact that the Armenian
authorities have yet to formally ask the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to monitor the polls. The Western concerns seem to
stem from the Kocharian administration’s failure to extend such an invitation
ahead of last November’s disputed constitutional referendum. [For details, see
the Eurasia Insight archive.]

During an October 17-19 visit to Yerevan, US Ambassador to the OSCE Julie Finley
elaborated on these concerns. "The OSCE is the gold standard for monitoring
elections," she said in an interview done by this reporter for Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty. "They [the OSCE monitors] are coming to the United States
to monitor our mid-term elections in November. Why the heck shouldn’t they be
over here to monitor the Armenian elections?"

Citing a busy schedule, Kocharian, however, pointedly declined to meet the
visiting US diplomat. Finley, who met a host of other senior Armenian officials,
said that she was "very, very disappointed" by the president’s inability to meet
with her. "Usually in my travels [to OSCE member states] I do meet with the head
of state," she said.

The Armenian leader instead discussed the elections with the Yerevan-based
ambassadors of major European Union countries on October 27. His office quoted
him as assuring them that "both long-term and short-term international
monitoring missions will be invited for the observation of electoral processes"
in Armenia.

Editor’s Note: Emil Danielyan is a Yerevan-based journalist and political
analyst.