Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
07YEREVAN1448
2007-12-18 12:24:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Yerevan
Cable title:  

CDA RAISES DEMOCRACY PROGRAM CONCERNS WITH PRIME

Tags:  PREF PHUM PGOV EAID KDEM KPAO AM 
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RR RUEHLMC
DE RUEHYE #1448/01 3521224
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
R 181224Z DEC 07 ZDS
FM AMEMBASSY YEREVAN
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 6766
INFO RUCNCIS/CIS COLLECTIVE
RUEHNO/USMISSION USNATO 0478
RUEHLMC/MILLENNIUM CHALLENGE CORPORATION WASHINGTON DC
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 YEREVAN 001448 

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C O R R E C T E D C O P Y (PARA 4, CLASSIFICATION)

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R FOR BUD JACOBS
EUR FOR CARC, PPD, ACE

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/14/2017
TAGS: PREF PHUM PGOV EAID KDEM KPAO AM
SUBJECT: CDA RAISES DEMOCRACY PROGRAM CONCERNS WITH PRIME
MINISTER


YEREVAN 00001448 001.2 OF 003


Classified By: CDA Joseph Pennington, reasons 1.4 (b,d)

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 YEREVAN 001448

SIPDIS

C O R R E C T E D C O P Y (PARA 4, CLASSIFICATION)

SIPDIS

R FOR BUD JACOBS
EUR FOR CARC, PPD, ACE

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/14/2017
TAGS: PREF PHUM PGOV EAID KDEM KPAO AM
SUBJECT: CDA RAISES DEMOCRACY PROGRAM CONCERNS WITH PRIME
MINISTER


YEREVAN 00001448 001.2 OF 003


Classified By: CDA Joseph Pennington, reasons 1.4 (b,d)


1. (C) SUMMARY: CDA and polchief called on the PM December 4
to discuss our ongoing election assistance programs
(highlighting IRI plans to conduct an exit poll),raise
concern about residence permits for USAID anti-corruption
program staff, and to review the Radio Liberty (RL) issue
with the PM. The PM expressed enthusiasm for the exit poll
idea, and by day's end had released a press statement
endorsing the proposal. He professed complete ignorance
about the anti-corruption project and the document problems
of its staff, but promised to look into it. On Radio
Liberty, he expressed broad agreement with the president's
hostile views toward the programming, but suggested he saw no
need for GOAM action against it. CDA notified the PM of our
long-developing plans to fund advertising of RL's new FM
frequencies. The PM asked that we consider postponing the ad
campaign until after a pending RFE/RL self-audit of its
content, slated to be complete by the end of December. END
SUMMARY.


2. (C) ELECTION ASSISTANCE/COOPERATION: The avowed purpose
of our meeting was to present the Prime Minister an updated
one-page summary of US election-related training and
assistance, which is essentially a carry-over of our
assistance program for the May 2007 parliamentary election.
CDA mentioned several areas of successful work with the GOAM,
such as IFES technical assistance in cleaning up voter
registries and providing election poll worker training, NDI
political party training, and efforts to increase political
involvement of youth and women. The PM affirmed his
appreciation for the range of US assistance, and commented
that he had publicly promoted several of these projects in
the past.


3. (C) EXIT POLLING: The key new item to report was the
International Republican Institute's (IRI) plan, with USAID

funding, to conduct an exit poll for the February
presidential election. IRI had asked that we gain explicit
buy-in from the GOAM before the exit polling program
commenced. CDA told the PM what was being planned,
commenting that similar exit polls had been done successfully
in such places as Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, and could be a
useful tool to add to public confidence in an election. He
suggested that having independent exit poll data, produced by
international experts, to corroborate election results could
also be an effective way to debunk bogus opposition claims of
fraud, and thereby reduce the risk of public disorder
following the election. The PM immediately and warmly
embraced the idea, gushing that had we not offered to do it,
the government itself would have tried to contract with
British or US polling experts to do so. Within hours, the
cabinet press office had released a press statement about the
CDA's meeting with the prime minister, applauding the exit
poll idea. The PM was briefly confused that perhaps the exit
polling data would be shared only with political parties --
as had been the case with other types of IRI survey data --
and he said he wanted the exit poll data to be made public
right away. (NOTE: Polchief had some weeks before
informally foreshadowed the exit poll plan to PM aide Levon
Martirosyan, so the PM had had plenty of time to consider his
response to the idea. END NOTE)


4. (C) THE WOES OF THE MAAC PROJECT: USAID has recently
launched its multi-year, multi-million dollar Mobilizing
Action Against Corruption (MAAC) project to work with the
government and civil society on combating corruption. The
new MAAC program is being led by a Canadian citizen chief of
party (COP) and a Bulgarian citizen deputy COP, who had been
encouraged by the good cooperation they were getting from the
GOAM's own anti-corruption secretariat. Mysteriously,
however, when USAID forwarded the routine paperwork package
to the relevant authorities to request residence permits for
the COP/DCOP, the request was denied without explanation.
Further attempts elicited word that the applicants should
cease trying, though still no real explanations were offered.
The embassy reached out to the MFA for help, and we were
subsequently advised that the Passport and Visas Division
(OVIR) had been directed that no residence permits should be
issued to these two men. He encouraged post to elevate the
matter to a higher level. Other back-channel contacts
suggested that the National Security Service was responsible
for blacklisting the two.


5. (C) RAISING MAAC: CDA related briefly the inexplicable
difficulties in getting the MAAC staff their residence
permits, noting that he hated to bring such a seemingly minor

YEREVAN 00001448 002.2 OF 003


matter to the PM, but we had been unsuccessful working
through normal channels. He emphasized that the program was
not aimed at pointing fingers of blame, but at helping the
government and society to address what the prime minister and
president had each acknowledged was a serious challenge for
Armenia. CDA pointed out that it would be most unfortunate
for future headlines to announce that USAID's landmark
anti-corruption program in Armenia would be shut down because
the government refused to allow the project's leaders to
remain in the country. The PM professed complete ignorance
not only of the problem but of the program itself, and
expressed surprise (and some irritation) that any kind of
political directive to OVIR could have been sent without his
knowledge. He pointed out that he himself served as Chairman
of the Government Anti-Corruption Council, and was therefore
surprised to learn that a USAID anti-corruption project was
already taking place and he had heard nothing about it. The
PM's staff took down the relevant names so he could look into
the matter. Several days later, staffer Levon Martirosyan
replied to polchief with a short message, "As to these two
guys, I am afraid the problem seems to be more serious than
we thought and there are no easy solutions at the moment."
Shortly thereafter the PM and his key staffers departed for a
trip to Brussels and Strasbourg and have been unavailable for
further follow-up.


6. (C) COMMENT -- A MAAC LESSON LEARNED: The GOAM's
anti-corruption organization is oddly set up, and this may
have contributed to the PM's feeling blindsided. The GOAM
has both a ministerial-level Anti-Corruption Council, which
is based in the cabinet and chaired by the Prime Minister,
and a full-time, staff-level Anti-Corruption Committee, which
is headed by an adviser to the President and based in the
Presidency organization. The committee is tasked with
drafting the government's anti-corruption strategy, which
eventually must be approved by the Council. MAAC has worked
closely with the committee chairman, relying on him to keep
the other relevant parties informed. It appears that the
committee chairman has a poor line of communication to the
cabinet. However, MAAC staff members have also worked
extensively with the cabinet's legal department head, who
reports directly to the PM's chief of staff. So if the PM was
left unaware, his own staff is also to blame. That said,
Serzh Sargsian has not been prime minister for all that long,
and we can believe that the organization may indeed be
failing to feed information up the chain as well as they
should. END COMMENT


7. (C) RADIO LIBERTY -- MAKING THE CASE: CDA also raised
with the prime minister the recent spate of invective
frompresidential chief of staff Armen Gevorkian about Radio
Liberty. CDA reported Gevorkian's all-but-explicit threats
to shut down RL broadcasts in Armenia. He commented that
this would be a seriously negative indicator in the run-up to
the February presidential election He pointed out that
Sargsian himself would be the chief victim of this negative
political fallout, as Sargsian is the ruling party's
presidential candidate and therefore the presumed beneficiary
of an act to muzzle opposition media, whereas President
Kocharian is set to retire. CDA reminded that -- though it
was funded by Congress -- RL has a completely independent
management and board of governors, and its editorial policy
is outside the control of the Embassy or the State
Department. He noted that he had conveyed Gevorkian's
concerns to RFE/RL management, which was undertaking a
detailed audit of RL content during the month of December.


8. (C) THE PM'S REPLY ON RL: Sargsian complained that the
GOAM had raised concerns for a year about RL's editorial bias
-- specifically, that the RL Armenia Service director is
committed to promoting a partisan agenda -- but that nothing
had been done to correct the problem. At the same time, the
PM said, "I personally am not much concerned" about RL,
adding that RL had shown the same kind of bias during the
parliamentary election season, and had had no significant
effect on the outcome. He expressed confidence that RL would
be similarly ineffective in promoting its political agenda
during the presidential election. In what seemed an example
of talking points coordinated with the presidency, he
commented that "commitments must be observed, not just
unilaterally." (Comment: the PM was echoing Gevorkian's
earlier (specious) suggestion that the embassy or RL had
earlier this year made some kind of commitment to the GOAM
about RL's editorial content. End comment.) CDA replied that
the PM had CDA's commitment to ensure that the GOAM's
concerns were conveyed fully and frankly to top RFE/RL
management, as had been done already, and that he was

YEREVAN 00001448 003.2 OF 003


confident that RFE/RL's ongoing internal audit would
determine if anything was amiss with RL's programming.


9. (C) ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN FOR RL: CDA then raised the
issue of our plan to advertise RL's switch (which happened
September 1) from public radio to the private radio stations
that now carry its broadcasts. He emphasized that efforts to
develop the $80,000 campaign had begun in late summer when it
had become clear to us that RL would change networks, but
(USG) bureaucratic processes meant that the money was only
now available. CDA said the current proposal was not a
reaction to the latest round of RL criticism from the GOAM,
but was intended to let the audience know where they could
find RL programming now that it is no longer on the public
radio network.. Seeming nonplussed, the PM eventually said
it would be good if the ad campaign could be delayed until
after the RFE/RL content audit. CDA responded that we would
consider delaying until then, and that we would get back to
the PM's staff (Comment: The timing issue may now be moot,
as we understand the funding for the ad campaign has been
delayed and may not be available until February. End comment).


10. (C) COMMENT: The meeting was striking in that the three
democracy agenda items got such different responses: warm on
exit polls, neutral on the MAAC problems, and cold on Radio
Liberty. We are inclined from the PM's and his staff's
reactions to believe that they were genuinely unaware of the
MAAC issue. On RL, the coordination with the presidency was
clear. Sargsian seemed to check himself mid-stream in his
anti-RL complaints, adopting an above-the-fray demeanor.
Subsequent events (septel) have made clear that the president
and PM are on very different pages regarding exit polls. We
grow more persuaded that the president and the prime
minister, and their respective institutions, are now
operating quite independently from each other. There is
mounting evidence that communications between the two have
broken down significantly, especially on issues of political
strategy.
PENNINGTON