FISTFIGHT FOR VOTES: VIOLENCE MARS SECOND WEEK OF CAMPAIGN IN YEREVAN ELECTIONS

Having hardly overcome the bitter consequences and memories of the previous election, Yerevan officially entered a new stage of the pre-election whirlpool on May 2, the campaign dynamics of which -- marked by violence -- gives grounds to predict fresh wounds in the domestic politics of the country. Early in the second week of the campaign, May 11, women distributing flyers about an upcoming opposition rally were assaulted. If before the flyers would be simply taken away by force from the women, this time fists were put in use. One of the women, Ophelia Margaryan, was hit in her head with a stone causing a serious wound on her forehead; the other two women- Astghik Aghekyan and Amalya Poghosyan, were beaten with fists. “At the Avan branch of the Star supermarket some 20 young men, who had been watching us from their cars, approached and asked what we were doing there and what rights we had to distribute flyers in their turf,” Astghik Aghekyan told ArmeniaNow. “They attacked us, took away the whole bundle of leaflets and started hitting – in my face, shoulders, head – wherever they could reach.” In the heat of the fight fists got replaced with stones. “I didn’t understand how that young man jumped and hit in my face with a stone; blood gushed out immediately, and before we were able to figure out what was happening they were gone,” said Ophelia Margaryan. As the women tell, the assailants were saying every now and then: “What are you doing in Avan? This is Taron’s district and he is a Republican [party member], and Levon’s [Ter-Petrosyan’s] foot won’t step in here.” Taron Margaryan is the head of the Avan district administration, a member of the ruling Republican Party (RPA) holding the second position on the party’s election ticket. He is the late prime minister Andranik Margaryan’s son, who is, however, denying his or his party’s connection to the incident. Margaryan told in an interview with RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that “the RPA headquarters and republicans” have nothing to do with the incident; and that the attackers could have been ordinary residents of that community. According to him, he had tried to find out who the young people were, but failed. Republican party spokesman Eduard Sharmazanov gave a similar response, saying that such incidents least of all are in their interests. “I can assure you that only a short-sighted politician would take such a step, this is another provocation: we witnessed similar cases during the presidential elections, that tension is created by certain well-known forces and we all know what it ended up with,” Sharmazanov told ArmeniaNow, calling for “refraining from such methods”. Meanwhile, the opposition cries foul and says ‘the methods remain unchanged’ and that ‘the authorities must give them up.’ Arman Musinyan, a spokesperson for the opposition Armenian National Congress led by Levon Ter-Petrosyan that participate in the municipal elections as a bloc, says that the incidents typical of the presidential elections are being repeated now. “It’s the same kind of criminal activities; remember the Artashat incident from the previous campaign, when our supporters underwent an assault by Hovik Abrahamyan’s kinsmen, or the squabble during the Talin rally. These have the same handwriting and are, unfortunately, leading to the same deadlock,” Musinyan says. It’s noteworthy, though, that the conflicts rise not only between the opposition and the authorities, but among the members of the pro-government coalition as well. Late on May 12, there was a confrontation between members of Prosperous Armenia and Republican parties, as a result of which Republican Arayik Kotanjyan, head of the Kanaker-Zeytun district administration, and another republican member of the district council, reportedly, suffered. Kotanjyan denies this information assuring that there was a small argument and that’s all there was to it; his statement being in contrast to the fact that a large group of policemen arrived at the place where the incident took place and that, as Aravot daily reported, Kotanjyan was limping after the quarrel. “It was simply a guy quarrel with one insulting another by asking why the latter had been changing parties quite so often- at first they were members of Orinats Yerkir (Country of Law), then became Republican, now they are members of Prosperous Armenia. That’s what prompted the argument which, however, ended soon after,” Kotanjyan told ArmeniaNow adding that ‘somebody needed to make noise in this period, and so they did.’ Heritage party member, MP Stepan Safaryan fears the forthcoming elections will be “as tense as the February 19 presidential ones, at best”. “There will be fights and scuffles, as the negative trends do not bode well,” Safaryan told ArmeniaNow, adding: “How can we possibly avoid incidents, when the previous ones were never punished; the election process, the formation of election committees, is already not transparent and that alone is enough to raise serious concerns.” If until recently the authorities had been periodically declaring that these elections were no more than local government elections and shouldn’t be politicized, today it is obvious that they are of state importance. The Council of Europe, too, recognizes the significance of the elections of the Yerevan City Council. Members of the PACE monitoring commission made a statement following the start of the pre-election campaign, which was also preceded by violence against opposition supporters distributing flyers announcing the May 1 opposition rally (Link to that story http://armenianow.com/?action=viewArticle&AID=3681&lng=eng). On May 5, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) co-rapporteurs on Armenia John Prescott and George Colombier welcomed the opposition’s participation in the elections. “The fact that Levon Ter-Petrosyan has decided to be a candidate in these elections should be seen as a clear signal of the Armenian National Congress that it wants to overcome the political crisis and play its role as a political force in the democratic institutions in the country,” stated the co-rapporteurs. However, predicting not so smooth a campaign process, the co-rapporteurs took another step: they declared about two months in advance that Armenia’s issue would be on the agenda of the PACE’s forthcoming session in June. “As a rule, the information about placing an issue on the agenda is publicized not sooner than a week before, hence, this is an obvious warning to the authorities, on whom, I can assume judging from their actions, that warning has had no serious effect,” says political analyst Yervand Bozoyan. Armenia’s Ombudsman Armen Harutyunyan calls for vigilance and tolerance; the Human Rights Defender is deeply concerned with the repeated cases of violence against people distributing opposition rally flyers and the fact that so far those responsible for the violence have not identified. “It is unacceptable, considering the fact that the victims of violence, as they say, have filed complaints to the RA Police submitting photographs and license plates of the assailants’ cars,” says the Ombudsman, adding that if the cases are not detected “the inertness on the part of the police can be viewed as an encouragement of such incidents.”
Gayane Abrahamyan

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