"We will win and spring will come"

Armenia is ready for the elections of a new president

Today in Armenia is a “day of silence” before the presidential elections : election campaigning, like in many other countries, stops on voting day. The campaign, which was much more dynamic than the elections to the national assembly, ended last weekend with two grand rallies in Yerevan, attended by supporters of the two leading candidates. A real boiling of passions is something that you won’t see in Russia either two weeks or two days before the election of the head of state,” observed Vremya Novostei special correspondent Ivan SUKHOV in Armenia.

Different climate

Yerevan is beginning to recover from an unusually harsh winter. At night there is snow, ice and frost of up to 10 degrees everywhere, and everyone just says that Armenia has changed places, if not with Siberia, then at least with Moscow. During the day everything melts and flows under the warm sun, but sunset is still early, and with the first twilight it begins to feel noticeably colder again. This is clearly not the most convenient weather for mass events on the streets, but it doesn’t stop anyone. “We will win, and spring will come!” - written on a homemade opposition poster. But everyone knows that spring will come, even if the party in power wins.

The Armenian elections have some similarities with the Russian ones. The presidential elections are also after the parliamentary elections, won by the ruling party, although not three months later, but more than six months later. The current president, Robert Kocharyan, is also leaving office because his second term has ended. And he is also being replaced by a pre-announced successor, Serzh Sargsyan, who has all possible administrative resources in his hands, because he works as prime minister and did not even go on vacation in connection with the elections. But that's where the similarities end: in exchange for cold weather, Yerevan, it seems, would do well to share with Moscow at least part of the energy with which it is preparing for the elections. A few days before the vote, no one here has the Russian reinforced concrete confidence in its results.

Armenian, and after them Russian political scientists, as befits people of their profession, long before the elections began to draw various ratings for the participants in the presidential race. The participants themselves laughed at the ratings: “Conducting sociological surveys in Armenia is like weighing a camel with a thermometer,” says presidential candidate Vazgen Manukyan, once also the Prime Minister of Armenia, who took part in presidential elections four times and therefore has an idea about the subject. “Half the people still won’t say who they’re going to vote for.”

For everyone who tried to find out electoral sympathies in advance, it turned out that the leader, whatever one may say, remains the successor Serzh Sargsyan - a participant in the war in Karabakh, a security official, a successful minister of defense, since the death of Prime Minister Andranik Markaryan in March last year -minister and leader of the Republican Party, which has significantly more than a third of the mandates in parliament. “The authorities and the opposition, through joint efforts, managed to convince everyone that Serge is a continuation of Robert,” says Alexander Iskandaryan, director of the Caucasus Media Institute. - In fact, this is not entirely true: they competed and continue to compete. The situation is outwardly similar to the Russian one, but inside it is completely different: in Armenia you cannot simply take the unknown Poghos Poghosyan and make him president. Serge snatched the position of heir from Robert's mouth."

Successor

Serzh Sargsyan is clearly not Dmitry Medvedev, and Robert Kocharyan is not Vladimir Putin. Even before the parliamentary elections last spring, his administration actively discussed the possibility of “castling,” so familiar to Russian ears: the president becomes head of government, and the head of government becomes president. In the middle of his first presidential term, Robert Kocharyan held a constitutional referendum, which slightly reduced the scope of the president's powers and slightly added weight to the parliament and the government, which in Armenia is formed by the parties dominating the parliament. Probably, such a scheme would have worked with Prime Minister Markaryan, but he died unexpectedly, and with the new prime minister everything turned out to be not so convenient.

For the May parliamentary elections, President Kocharyan, just in case, brought out a brand new party, Prosperous Armenia, which was financed by loyal businesses and which threatened to collect a majority of votes. “Prosperous Armenia” resoundingly lost the elections to Sargsyan’s Republicans: it has three times fewer mandates, and was invited to the ruling coalition out of politeness. The head of “Prosperous Armenia”, the main Republican oligarch Gagik Tsarukyan, wanders around the prime minister’s election rallies, and the presidential administration is gossiping about where the outgoing boss will be invited - either as a director in a consortium that is allegedly planned to be created from Russian companies operating in Armenia , or deputy chairman of the board of directors at the Russian Gazprom.

The whole country is covered with flags and posters of Serzh Sargsyan - other candidates are almost invisible, and Sargsyan smiles from the doors of cafes, store windows, buses, huge billboards on the side of the road and simply from the walls of buildings. “We also have about a thousand posters, but Armenian legislation very strictly regulates where they can be hung and where they cannot be hung, and when we started working, it turned out that wherever possible, Serzh Sargsyan was already hanging,” shrugs candidate Vazgen Manukyan's shoulders.

The successor's popularity level is assessed differently depending on the polling agency. The results range from 50.8%, which makes it possible to barely avoid the second round, to a confident 75%. Further discrepancies become more significant.

According to the authorities, which is supported by many Russian experts, the second most popular is Artur Baghdasaryan - the former speaker of parliament, who for some reason went to Kyiv during the Orange Revolution of 2004, quarreled with the president and went into opposition. Because of his trip to Kyiv for the parliamentary elections, Mr. Baghdasaryan had to play the role of the main “orange” bogeyman, which did not stop him from nevertheless leading his “Land of Law” party into the national assembly. It seems that Artur Baghdasaryan also entered the presidential elections as an oppositionist, but now many Yerevan observers are inclined to suspect the former speaker of collusion with the party in power. There is a hypothesis: Mr. Baghdasaryan’s role is to enter the second round together with Serzh Sargsyan, if he fails to collect the required 50% plus one vote to win the first time, and honestly loses in the second. Maybe because of this, there were also places for Mr. Baghdasaryan’s posters to hang them.

1988 technology

But if sociological surveys and ratings are a moving, changeable thing, then the sociology of the street does not give the opportunity to make a mistake: Serge Sarkisian’s closest competitor is the first president of Armenia, the founder of the Third Republic (the First - after the collapse of the Russian Empire, the Second - as part of the Soviet Union ) Levon Ter-Petrosyan. Even republican officials are ready to admit that Levon, who spent ten years in the quiet position of the Matenadaran repository of ancient manuscripts and suddenly, as if in 1988, found himself at the head of rally crowds, has at least 20% of the votes. Even if this is so, the ex-president doubles the result of Artur Baghdasaryan in the parliamentary elections and is about the same ahead of Vahan Hovhannisyan, the leader of the parliamentary faction of the oldest Armenian party, Dashnaktsutyun. Five more candidates seem to be aware that they cannot count on any significant success. “Only two candidates in this election really want to become president,” says Alexander Iskandaryan. “This is Serzh Sargsyan and Levon Ter-Petrosyan.”

According to the political scientist, if Ter-Petrosyan had not put forward his candidacy, “the elections would have been a simple organizational and managerial task: it would have been boring, I would have wanted to sleep.” When asked why Ter-Petrosyan was not eliminated at the stage of registering candidates, as would certainly have been done in Russia, candidate Vazgen Manukyan answers: “Levon’s nomination came as a surprise to them, but at first they were not very afraid, because Levon immediately broke the possible unification of the opposition - too many of the opposition leaders would fundamentally not be able to come to an agreement with him. At the very beginning, it seemed to us that we could build a free state based on national values, and much depended on the first president. Unfortunately, Levon failed to become the Armenian Washington. When Yeltsin left, he at least apologized. Levon didn’t do this, he doesn’t consider himself guilty of anything except for bringing Kocharyan to power.”

“Levon Ter-Petrosyan is an ideologist, a politician who lived in 1988-1991, one of those who overthrew the USSR, created the “Karabakh” committee and owned the areas,” says Alexander Iskandaryan. “Compared to him, Serzh Sargsyan is a completely different leader, he fought, he can be a crisis manager, but in completely different situations.”

The real growth in the popularity of the main opposition candidate began about two weeks ago - before that, first there were New Year holidays, and then the opposition had almost no access to television.

With the start of the formal presidential race, television channels, under pressure from observers, were forced to distribute time between the candidates. And even every offensive word spoken on air about the former president began to bring him new voices. Now the main task of both competitors is to “stir up” in their favor a huge layer of political “passivity”, which does not apply to either loyal voters or the protest electorate. “Levon is relying on 1988 technology: so that the person responsible for ensuring elections would be afraid that the situation could really change and get out of control. In this case, it will really be possible to “break through” the elections, the expert believes.

Orange flags

Even if you are not afraid, there is something to be impressed by. Last Saturday, supporters of Levon Ter-Petrosyan gathered for a final rally on Theater Square in Yerevan. Columns of young people, moving straight along the roadway, poured into the square in streams, on which a whole sea of ​​national flags of Armenia - red-blue-orange - and orange flags of the New Times party, which literally the day before announced its support for the opposition candidate, swayed. In front of the improvised presidium, on the steps of the theater, a real cauldron of human heads and hands was boiling, and from this epicenter, cries scattered across the square in waves: “Levon! Levon! Victory! Victory!"

The first president came to the microphone after several party leaders rallied around him and spoke as if he had already become the third president. He promised to celebrate the victory on February 20, called on officials “not to cling to a sinking ship” and “to stop the betrayal of their own people,” which they are committing by continuing to “stand next to Robert and Serge.” “The union of the people with the first president has taken place,” he summed up the results of the campaign. And he immediately added that he did not waste time: “We tried to clarify relations with the outside world in advance, met with ambassadors and international observers. A few days ago I had a very important meeting in Moscow and I assure you that Russia continues to see Armenia as an important partner. Russia needs an Armenian president who has the support of his people. Russia does not consider the current regime to be such.”

“I am honored to stand next to all of you,” the candidate continued. “It was not you who came to me, but I who came to you, and this is a great honor for me.” For ten years I led a calm and pleasant life, wrote books, raised grandchildren, planted trees. But seeing how the people who are now standing next to me have been fighting against tyranny for ten years without weakening, I was ashamed and came to you. The February 19 elections are all elections that have taken place since 1998 and were falsified. But February 19 will end with our victory, and what failed in 2003 will succeed now.”

A huge crowd, frozen in front of the podium for two hours, began to pour out of the square and flowed through the streets of the center. Cars were avoided, traffic jams formed at intersections. Drivers who found themselves in the thick of the procession rolled down their windows and also chanted: “Levon! Levon!” It was unclear whether they were doing this sincerely or out of fear for their car and their health. On Abovyan Street, a young couple with a white flag of the Republican Party of Serzh Sargsyan came out onto the balcony of one of the houses - they booed her, and if they had found enough clean snow, they would probably have thrown snowballs at her. An hour and a half later, the column returned to Theater Square, seemingly not having thinned out at all, despite the unmerciful weather. Only when it became completely dark and cold did people begin to disperse. The organizers of the rally boasted that, according to their estimates, at least 300 thousand people came. This is almost a third of the population of Yerevan, so much simply would not fit on Theater Square, but it still looked impressive.

"Forward, Armenia!"

If a third of Yerevan came to the rally on Saturday, then two-thirds came to the rally on Sunday: Serzh Sargsyan’s supporters from two o’clock in the afternoon were sucked into Theater Square as if into a huge funnel. The opposition rally seethed most of the time, without interfering with vehicular traffic along the four streets around the square's perimeter. Yesterday's rally of supporters of the Prime Minister spilled out into all surrounding neighborhoods. Serzh Sargsyan did not bore the audience with the speeches of his supporters, he immediately gave a long, heartfelt speech about how important it is that Armenia continues to prosper and its population is not divided to suit someone’s political interests, he prayed for the homeland and people and threw out a battle cry: “Forward, Armenia!” In Armenian it sounds in approximately the same rhythm as “Spartak is a champion!”, so loyal voters, whose candidate does not have such a sonorous monosyllabic name, also found something to shout. The concert had already begun on the square, and the dispersed participants shouted the chant for a long time. Some of them, no doubt, were brought on buses from schools and other budget institutions. But this clearly did not apply to everyone - not two or three thousand people came to the Sunday rally on their own initiative.

Although the authorities may have won the last round of the rally stage against the opposition, the climax is ahead, and the intrigue remains. On February 20, the day of the vote count, both crowds will take to the streets of Yerevan, each declaring that they are celebrating their own victory. Both rallies will also be dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the Karabakh movement for independence from Azerbaijan and annexation to Armenia.

Middle-peasant candidate Vazgen Manukyan recalls the 1996 presidential elections, when the results summed up by the Central Election Commission did not particularly inspire Levon Ter-Petrosyan, who was running for his second term. “At night there was an assault on the Central Election Commission, which was then in the parliament building. A protest meeting was scheduled for 12 o’clock, but tanks entered the city.”

Now, unrest seems almost inevitable even to supporters of the current government. “Are you, as Prime Minister, prepared for protests against the official voting results to take on a revolutionary character?” - a Vremya Novostei correspondent asked candidate Serzh Sargsyan when he was preparing to speak at a rally in the city of Abovyan last Saturday. “I can hardly imagine that there could be a revolution in Armenia. There may be protests. But revolutions usually happen where there are many dissatisfied people, or where the government is weak. Neither one nor the other point applies to us.”