PROMISE OF PROSPERITY RESONATES WITH VILLAGERS IN

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 YEREVAN 000305

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR EUR/CARC

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/15/2017
TAGS: PGOV PHUM AM
SUBJECT: PROMISE OF PROSPERITY RESONATES WITH VILLAGERS IN
ARMENIA'S NORTHWEST PROVINCE

REF: 06 YEREVAN 489

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Classified By: CDA A. F. Godfrey for reasons 1.4 (b, d).

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SUMMARY
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1. (SBU) The crocuses are blooming in Yerevan, but it is
still winter in the remote villages of Armenia's Shirak
province. Though construction dust has displaced the
February slush in the relatively well-heeled capital city,
Shirak villagers are still burning dried bars of cow dung for
heat and contending with pot holes large enough to
swallow a small car. And while election campaign posters are
sprouting up in Yerevan (illegally, ahead of the official
April 8 campaign start date),Shirak villagers' political
interest extends only to politicians who they believe might
make their lives tangibly better. It is for this reason that
Gagik Tsarukian's Prosperous Armenia (PA) party has made
significant membership gains in Shirak province. When we
visited the area a year ago, PA was nowhere to be found
(reftel). During our March 6-7 trip to the region, we found
that PA offices had cropped up in many small villages, with a
growing membership attracted by the party's philanthropy. We
met with government officials, party representatives and NGO
staff in Gyumri and six other villages and towns to discuss
the political atmosphere leading up to the May 12
parliamentary elections. END SUMMARY.

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A WORLD AWAY
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2. (U) Tucked into the corner of Armenia created by the
Turkish and Georgian borders, Shirak province still bears the
scars of the 1988 earthquake, which killed tens of thousands
of people and leveled Gyumri, Armenia's second-largest city
and the provincial capital. Many residents of Gyumri and
nearby Spitak, the earthquake's epicenter, fled to villages
in the region. Those who have not gone abroad to find work
still live in Shirak's
villages and towns, many without running water and natural
gas, and nearly all without hope for a better future.
These were recurring elements in our conversations with
government officials, political party representatives and
NGO staff in Gyumri, the town of Artik, and the villages of
Ashotsk, Gyullibullagh, Tsoghamarg, Azatyan and Dzorakap.

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POLITICS? WE DON'T HAVE HEAT!
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3. (SBU) Ashotsk Mayor Artur Aloyan told us that the village,
a former Soviet industrial center with two factories, had
lost nearly 30 percent of its population in the last 10
years, and that about 70 percent of the current population
was out of work. (NOTE: The GOAM's official figure is lower
because it does not include landowners, however, Aloyan said
most of the villagers' land was not arable. END NOTE.)
Families in Ashotsk make their living
through remittances from family members working Russia, and
by selling milk to the Ashtarak dairy company for 100 dram
(about 28 cents) per liter. Their incomes are barely enough
to live on, let alone to settle the large debts many of them
owe on bank loans.


4. (SBU) According to the mayor of Gyullibullagh, a village
peopled by Armenian refugees from the Azerbaijan and where
winter temperatures routinely drop down to minus 30
Fahrenheit, some 60 percent of the village's men travel to
Russia each year for seasonal construction work. Mayor
Seyran Sargsyan told us over glasses of vinegary wine and a
plate of moldy apples that, although the villagers keep
cattle, the road to the village is so bad that the dairy
companies refuse to travel there to pick up the milk.

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PROSPEROUS ARMENIA MAKES STRIDES
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5. (SBU) The desperate conditions in these villages have
pushed political concerns to the back burner, unless
residents can see that something is in it for them. Ashotsk,
for example, is happy with its Republican parliamentarian,
Ashot Aghababyan, because he has reached into his own pockets
to help people. He buys presents for schools during the
holidays, personally paid for diesel fuel so that a snow plow

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could keep the village road open, and has been known to help
out individual families in particularly dire straits. Mayor
Aloyan told us he expected a financial gift for the village's
school on the occasion of International Women's Day on March

8.


6. (SBU) The PA representative in Ashotsk had no answer to
our questions about the party's political goals other than
"to help villagers," but that has not prevented people from
signing up. We spoke with one villager who had just
registered in the party office. He told us he joined because
he respected the party founder, oligarch Tsarukian, and
because he liked the implication of the name "Prosperous
Armenia." "Maybe it will benefit us," he
said. Aloyan said PA had given villagers some hope for the
future.


7. (SBU) A devoutly communist school director in wintry
Tsoghamarg said that Tsarukian had shown he was not

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interested in politics. "He just wants to help people, and
that resonated," he said. In the nearby village of
Gogovit, PA members have outstripped members of the ruling
coalition Republican Party two-to-one. And while PA has
not yet reached Gyullibullagh, the party appears to be paving
its way there. The mayor there told us PA representatives
had distributed New Year's presents to children but had not
signed up any new members. "It was just goodwill -- there
was no other purpose," he said. Hovhannes Papoyan, the head
of an NGO that promotes youth
political participation in Azatyan, just south of Gyumri,
told us the town's active PA office had made inroads by
distributing packets of seeds and helping vulnerable families.

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POLITICS AS USUAL IN THE CITY
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8. (C) We found much more anti-PA sentiment in Gyumri, where
the political climate was much more similar to that in
Yerevan than that in the villages. Orinats Yerkir MP Samvel
Balasanyan, who laid out a lavish spread of exotic fruit and
fresh pastries for his in the swanky office of his Gyumri
Beer brewery, complained that PA was registering people who
were already registered with other parties, and that the
Republican mayor of Gyumri was pressuring his
staff to join the Republican Party. Balasanyan told us that
PA undoubtedly was aligned with the Republicans,
something that our future interlocutors would echo.
(COMMENT: It became apparent when the Armenian party lists
were published March 3 that the Republicans and PA have
struck some sort of deal. The two parties only field
competing candidates in two of 41 majoritarian districts. In
each of the other 39, there is either a Republican candidate
or a PA candidate, but not both. END COMMENT.)


9. (C) The other opposition representatives we met with (from
the National Democratic Union, the Armenian National Movement
and the Republic Party) complained bitterly about lack of
access to broadcast media and said the election results had
already been fixed. They reiterated perennial complaints
about political pressure from school directors, saying that
directors who belong to PA, the Republican Party, or the
Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaks) were forcing
parents to join their parties.


10. (C) Gyumri representatives of the nationalist Dashnak
party were unconcerned about their party's prospects, but
nevertheless took every opportunity to malign PA. "PA is
created around one person," said representative Hovik
Petrosyan. "They have support, but they are lacking serious,
intelligent political minds." Petrosyan accused PA of
padding its membership rolls by photocopying people's
passports under other pretenses, a complaint that we have
heard before.

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FREE AND FAIR, OR NOT A CHANCE?
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11. (C) Human rights activists told us they thought the
election was already bought and paid for. Seyran Martirosyan
of the Sakharov Foundation said that, as an Armenian, he was
ashamed of Prosperous Armenia's campaign tactics. Levon
Barseghyan of the Asparez Journalists' Club had harsh words
for the Embassy, noting that CDA had spoken optimistically
about elections in the press. "I said and repeat that we
need to leave behind the presumption that the powers are
well-meaning. They are not, and cannot organize fair

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elections," Barseghyan said. He predicted that PA and the
Republicans would take at least 70 percent of the seats in
parliament through their alliance.

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WHY BOTHER VOTING?
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12. (C) Our last stop was in the village of Dzorakap, which
is unremarkable except for the fact that its residents have
not participated in a national election since 1999.
Villagers here live under the same depressed social
conditions that we found elsewhere in the province, and have
become so disaffected and apathetic that they refuse to go to
the polls. But Sahakyan said that might change this year,
because one villager is running for a majoritarian seat as an
independent candidate. He told us proudly that the villagers
of Shirak will not sell their votes, but noted later in the
conversation that "no one had offered to help." We left with
the distinct impression that PA might be able to recruit some
members in Dzorakap if it offered to pave a road or two.

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COMMENT
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13. (C) Concern about politics in general and election fraud
in particular is a luxury that most Armenians cannot afford.
Though the opposition has complained loudly about PA's
campaign techniques and its probable affiliation with the
Republicans, Armenia's poor see, at long last, a party that
wants to help them. It is clear that PA will pick up many
seats in this election; what is not clear is whether the
philanthropy will continue after the votes are cast.
GODFREY