ARMENIA: SPECIFICS OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICS

Alexander KRYLOV

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Alexander Krylov, D.Sc. (Hist.), leading research associate, Russia’s Institute of Strategic Research (Moscow, Russia)

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Results of Election-2003

Two rounds of presidential elections, a referendum on amendments to the Constitution and parliamentary elections took place in the republic in the first half of 2003. Foreign observers described both rounds of presidential elections (February-March) as “not corresponding to the international standards and during which unprecedented number of violations took place.” The leader of the Armenian delegation at the PACE A. Gegamian branded the elections as “an anti-constitutional coup.”

According to the official figures supplied by the Central Election Committee of Armenia, in the second round the incumbent president Robert Kocharian got 67.44% of the votes, while his opponent Stepan Demirchian, leader of the opposition People’s Party, 32.56%. Having studied the results, the Constitutional Court recognized Kocharian as the newly elected president but recommended the National Assembly to carry out a referendum on confidence in the authorities within the next 12 months. While commenting on this decision, Chairman of the Constitutional Court G. Arutiunian explained that the referendum would help overcome social confrontation and confirm the legitimacy of Kocharian’s second presidency.

The parliamentary elections in May 2003 attracted more critical salvoes from Western countries: the PACE and OSCE missions detected considerable violations of the vote counting procedure. Their joint statement said, in particular, that in certain key aspects these elections failed to comply with the international democratic standards: votes were bought while the voters had no faith in the election committees’ honesty. As a result, according to the document, big businessmen won a large number of seats; many of them secured voters’ support with services, money and commodities. The observers pointed out, however, that the parliamentary elections were much better organized and received much wider media coverage than the presidential elections.

These elections sent up political tension inside the country and damaged its image outside it. The turn out was the…………………

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