ARMENIA: ELECTION UPDATE

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 02 YEREVAN 000417 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/08/2017 TAGS: PGOV PHUM AM SUBJECT: ARMENIA: ELECTION UPDATE REF: A. YEREVAN 260 ¶B. YEREVAN 396 YEREVAN 00000417 001.2 OF 002 Classified By: CDA A.F.Godfrey for reason 1.4 (b, d) ¶1. (C) SUMMARY. Armenia's 35-day long "official" campaign period for the May 12 parliamentary election kicks off on April 8, and so far, the government has kept its commitments to hold better elections. ODIHR observers are in place and report that the legal preconditions for fair elections have been met. All parties which sought registration will be able to compete and will receive their allotment of state-provided broadcast time on TV and radio. It is far too soon to judge whether the authorities have enough political will to keep to this standard. End Summary. ¶2. (C) ALL PARTIES REGISTERED. Armenia's Central Election Commission (CEC) approved the applications for registration of all parties which applied. Twenty-four parties and one political alliance will contest the May 12 election for ninety party-list seats in Armenia's National Assembly. The CEC took its decisions several days before the April 7 deadline in order to give parties time to respond to queries about documentation. The ninety party-list seats will be awarded proportionally to all parties which receive more than five percent of votes cast. The one electoral bloc registered, named "impeachment," will have to pass a seven percent threshold, unlikely as few observers recognize any of the names of its leaders. ¶3. (C) SINGLE-MANDATE DISTRICTS. Registration is complete also for candidates for seats to be filled by majoritarian races. 133 candidates were registered, but they were not spread evenly among the 41 districts. Several seats will be contested by as many as seven candidates, but seven candidates will run unopposed. Three of these candidates are from the Republican Party and two are from the Prosperous Armenia Party; unsurprisingly, all five of these are the leading employers in their districts. The two other candidates running unopposed are notorious "biznessmen" with nicknames suggesting their organized crime ties. (Their monikers are "Lady Hakob" and "Le Fix Samo" (which could loosely be translated as "Sammy the Bra.") Only seven applicants to compete in single-mandate districts were refused registration; local experts agree that none were refused for political reasons (one is wanted by the police for plotting the murder of both President Kocharian and Acting PM Sargsian). ¶4. (C) "OFFICIAL" CAMPAIGN BEGINS APRIL 8. The 35-day sprint for elections begins on Armenian Easter Sunday. Government-funded election ads will be aired according to a rota developed by the CEC and we expect that Armenia's airwaves will be increasingly saturated with paid political ads as Election Day approaches. Armenia has more than 40 TV stations, most with only regional reach, and for those which are not affiliated with one of the parties, this hotly-contested campaign should have presented a potential bonanza. But for a variety of reasons (ref a) only eight stations decided to air political ads. The CEC told us that only those stations which advertised the prices for campaign spots in advance will be allowed to air ads. ¶5. (SBU) OSCE INTERIM REPORT. Although it was released in Vienna on April 2, the first ODIHR long-term observer mission interim report was distributed in Yerevan on April 5. The ODIHR report describes in general terms the political context, acknowledges improvements in Armenia's electoral code, while stating that good elections are dependent on political will, and lays out areas of concern (media access, voting outside of Armenia, possible restrictions on sites for public assembly). ¶6. (C) CIS OBSERVERS, HO! Commonwealth of Independent States Secretary General Vladimir Rushailo was in Yerevan on April 5 and met with President Kocharian, Acting PM Sargsian, the CEC, FM Oskanian and others. He announced that the CIS would field more than 150 observers on Election Day and would soon open one office in Yerevan and four more in the regions staffed by 29 long-term monitors, the same number of observers the ODIHR group has deployed. (Coincidence? We think not.) ¶7. (U) RUSSIAN OBSERVERS, TOO. In addition to whatever quota Russia might fill in the CIS observer contingent, Russian FM Lavrov, in Yerevan on April 4-5, pledged that Russia would fill completely the 30-member quota allotted to member states in the OSCE short-term observer team. ¶8. (S) REPUBLICANS TO FIGHT FOR CLEAN ELECTIONS? The Ruling Republican Party announced April 4 that it would form a team YEREVAN 00000417 002.2 OF 002 to ensure that the upcoming election is free and fair and nominated Justice Minister David Harutyunian to lead the effort. Harutyunian, a close contact of the Mission and with a reputation as a progressive, joined the Republican Party only recently. CDA approached Harutyunian on the margins of an event held on April 5 to express our serious concern over the use of the security services to intimidate a journalist (ref b). Harutyunian was visibly shocked by the news, called the act "incredibly stupid" and vowed to investigate and to try to prevent further such actions. ¶9. (C) COMMENT. With the one glaring exception noted above, Armenia is off to a creditable start to the extended home stretch of the political race. With all parties registered and no political refusals of other candidates, the race is taking place in a predictable fashion. The death of PM Markarian was a blow to the Republicans, but likely will not affect the outcome of elections. Ongoing programs of the Mission's Democracy Promotion Strategy are generally meeting with cooperation from the government. We expect to get an objective idea of how candidates are faring on April 17, when the results of a USAID-sponsored IRI poll are presented to the Mission. GODFREY