Armenia: a Spring Awakening?

After a lull of a year, Armenia’s domestic politics are livening up again. New opposition movements are being formed and the speaker of parliament is showing signs of political ambition.

For the moment, though, these political stirrings - both by emerging groups and established opposition parties - have largely left the public unmoved.

According to Natalya Martirosian, coordinator of the Armenian office of the Helsinki Citizens Assembly, a new group calling itself Bekum, or Breakthrough, could emerge as a potent force for change.

“The creation of Bekum is one of the potential steps towards change in this country,” she told IWPR.

Bekum was set up by a number of non-government organisations, NGOs, which want to see swifter progress towards a civil society.

At the beginning of April, another group called the National League for Armenian Independence was formed, with the declared aim of opposing any political decision that it believes poses a threat to the country’s independence. The group pledged to use all constitutional means to ensure that “passive social protest becomes active”.

There has been a marked revival in the activity of mainstream opposition parties, too. The opposition New Times and Republic Party both held conferences recently, while the Justice bloc held a forum at which there were calls for the resignation of the administration of President Robert Kocharian.

Aram Karapetian, leader of the New Times party and an unsuccessful candidate in the 2003 presidential election, believes that the evolutionary approach is not working and the only way forward is the kind of peaceful revolution that occurred in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan.

“I am sure that we will succeed in uniting the dissatisfied masses, pressure from which will force the government to step down. Victory is inevitable,” said Karapetian.

The leader of the Republic Party, former prime minister Aram Sarksian, voiced similar views, “In Armenia, we have reached a situation where we need not just a change of power, but revolution. Many people agree with this, and we need only to get together at a certain time and place.

“A nationwide revolution will take place unexpectedly - and not one window pane will be broken.”

Leaders of the nine-party parliamentary faction Justice are taking a less radical position. They believe that the government can still be removed by constitutional means, with the best option being to hold a national referendum expressing no confidence in the president.

“We favour a calm and peaceful solution to events,” said Justice faction secretary Viktor Dallakian.

For the moment, President Kocharian appears more secure than his counterparts in other parts of the former Soviet Union. He is three years away from the end of his second and final presidential term in 2008. To achieve the kind of national ballot it wants, the opposition would have to get parliament – with its pro-government majority – to agree amendments to the law governing referendums.

The opposition has been boycotting sessions of parliament for more than a year. Despite this, opposition deputies make monthly statements and are given a small amount of airtime once a week on national television.

Pro-government politicians say the current opposition poses them no threat.

“There will be no outside-inspired revolution in Armenia because, unlike other former Soviet republics, Armenia cannot create problems for the superpowers,” said Galust Saakian, leader of the Republican Party of Armenia faction, a pro-government group (not to be confused with the Republic party).

“Both the opposition and the government will be careful not to erase 15 years of statehood for the sake of satisfying the great powers and other dubious forces,” said Prime Minister Andrannik Margarian robustly.

Government supporters say Armenia lacks the same kind of problems that made revolutions possible in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. Moreover, they believe a prerequisite for this kind of revolution is the catalyst provided by elections, which in Armenia’s case are more than two years away.

“It’s highly unlikely that there’ll be a new scenario in Armenia,” said Samvel Nikoyan, a pro-government member of parliament.

Kocharian was in confident mood when he spoke to students in Yerevan on April 11, telling them, “I call on the opposition to stop worrying about the fact that they are weak and have achieved nothing. They have achieved nothing because the country and government is better.”

However, some observers reading the political runes in Armenia say they see signs of nervousness at the top, and even the start of a campaign to succeed Kocharian from inside the ruling elite.

At the end of March, Kocharian was invited to Paris by French president Jacques Chirac. But for the first time in his seven-year presidency, Kocharian declined an invitation to go abroad.

Although official sources cited a leg injury as the reason, the opposition press wrote that the president had no health problems, so there was speculation that the delay had a political rather than a medical cause. The Armenian president finally left for France on April 20.

His trip took place just as National Assembly speaker Artur Bagdasarian – whose position makes him the second most senior official in Armenia’s hierarchy - was making his presence felt.

Two weeks ago, an article written by Bagdasarian appeared in the press, discussing the need to hold democratic presidential and parliamentary elections in Armenia.

Many observers believe that Bagdasarian’s article is essentially a pre-election political manifesto. “The revolution has already begun: read Bagdasarian’s article carefully,” said opposition leader Aram Sarkisian.

Bagdasarian’s Orinats Yerkir or Country of Law party has also been courting other parties, including opposition groups.

Even some of Bagdasarian’s colleagues from the ruling coalition say the speaker is beginning an election campaign. “He has turned parliament into an election headquarters,” said Galust Saakian.

Bagdasarian recently made a high-profile trip to Moscow, where he discussed economic matters with Russia’s minister of transport and the co-chairman of the Armenia-Russia intergovernmental commission, even though these issues are the business of the government rather than parliament.

With Kocharian’s return from France, political commentators are waiting for the next episode in this slowly evolving political drama.

Susanna Petrosian is a journalist with Noyan Tapan news agency.