JUDGING ARMENIA'S ELECTIONS - GOOD ENOUGH, BUT

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 YEREVAN 000640

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/15/2017
TAGS: PGOV PHUM KDEM AM
SUBJECT: JUDGING ARMENIA'S ELECTIONS - GOOD ENOUGH, BUT
SHOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER

REF: A) YEREVAN 608

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


1. (C) SUMMARY: We judge Armenia's May 12 election an
improvement over previous elections, although this is faint
praise. The combined International Election Observation
Mission has issued an upbeat preliminary assessment. ODIHR
seemed to feel keenly the institutional pressures. If the
Europeans grade Armenia a solid "B," we judge that Armenia
deserves a "gentleman's C." Our own relatively few
accredited embassy observers saw some fairly egregious
incidents, which blemish the overall record. Our initial
sense is that the cheating and intimidation we witnessed was
locally home-grown in various regions, not centrally
organized. END SUMMARY

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BETTER THAN BEFORE...
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2. (C) There is no denying that this election was better
than either the presidential or parliamentary elections in
2003, or the constitutional referendum of 2005, all three of
which were seriously flawed. Voter turnout, credibly
reported at just about sixty percent, was more robust than
many expected. Voters clearly were committed to turning out
to participate in great numbers. Balloting was orderly and
calm in the great majority of polling places. Media access
was notably better than before. During the campaign period,
we saw a conspicuous increase in the opposition parties and
politicians on Armenia's airwaves, including the
legislatively-mandated free advertisements, as well as news
program coverage and talk show appearances.


3. (C) Freedom of Assembly was another success story, and an
area where Armenia had had a poor track record. Opposition
parties were generally provided fair access to public spaces
to hold their political rallies and protests, and were
unmolested by authorities. Even the quite strident
Impeachment Bloc, with its sharply anti-government rhetoric,
was able to rally freely. The movement eventually attracted
a noticeable following (perhaps up to about 10,000 people) to
its demonstrations. Police kept discreetly well out of sight
of most demonstrations. With one fairly minor exception (Ref
A),police and demonstrators avoided running afoul of each
other.


4. (C) Popular attitudes have been difficult to assess, and
seem sharply at odds. We have heard from many average
Armenians the perception that these elections were a sharp
departure from bad past practice, and they think that the
polling went well. Intelligentsia are far more likely to be
sharply negative, and to accept as valid the many opposition
complaints of rampant violations. In a perverse compliment,
there have been widespread reports of average voters
complaining that they have always before received gifts of
cooking oil, rice, flour, or other commodities.


5. (C) Central Election Commission Chairman Garegin Azaryan
told CDA that recounts have been called in six Territorial
Election Commissions (TECs): 5 and 6 in Yerevan, 14 and 15
in Aragotsotn marz, 25 in Kotayk marz, and 33 in Shirak marz.
The recounts have been finished in TECs 5 and 6, uncovering
no problems, while the remaining four are ongoing. Azaryan
said that the recount in TEC 15 has uncovered significant
enough problems that he expects a criminal investigation to
result. It is encouraging that authorities are taking
seriously the need to double-check questionable areas.

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...BUT STILL NOT GREAT
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6. (C) With all that said, we had hoped for a better outcome
yet. To begin with, the Armenian government entered the
election campaign clearly determined to "manage" the
perceptions of the international community with regard to
these elections, and seems to have done so. The GOAM won an
early skirmish when it laid down markers with ODIHR Director
Strohal that American citizens were not welcome in the
leadership of ODIHR's Election Observation Mission (EOM),and
that the numbers of Americans in the EOM overall must be
strictly constrained. Thus, where in 2003 we had about 20
U.S. Embassy observers fanned out across the country and we
discovered many instances of fraud, in 2007 we had only six,
of whom five saw serious problems. To be fair, we had
deliberately dispatched our observers to places where we most
anticipated problems to take place.

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7. (C) Our emboffs witnessed serious intimidation in a few
of the most traditionally notorious areas: Spitak (Lori
Marz),Artashat (Ararat Marz),parts of Yerevan, and in
Etchmiadzin (Armavir Marz). We saw several polling places
that had been effectively taken over by burly thugs
representing either the dominant Republican Party or
pro-governmental rival Prosperous Armenia. We saw party
goons standing at the polling place doors, escorting and
standing over voters as they voted (especially the elderly).
In one Spitak polling place, Prosperous Armenia thugs shut
down operations for nearly an hour. Eventually, a larger
band of brawny Republican Party stalwarts faced down the
Prosperous Armenia partisans, and assumed control of that
station through the count. Our observers, watching the count
there, observed the Republicans blatantly steal votes from
other parties during the count.


11. (C) In a Yerevan polling place, a burly candidate-proxy
(representative of a notoriously shady, pro-Republican
oligarch, "Nemetz Rubo") flagrantly intimidated voters, other
proxies, and polling place workers during the voting day and
the vote count. Our observers watched him like a hawk
throughout the hours of the count, believing that they had
kept the proxy from stealing more than a handful for the
Republicans. When official results were posted the next
morning, over a hundred votes had been switched from the
popular opposition Heritage Party to a minor rival with no
chance of winning seats.


12. (C) In the town of Artashat (Ararat Marz),the CDA
spotted a man in the act of ballot box stuffing. A trusted
AID partner twice saw the same thing in Etchmiadzin (Armavir
Marz). The same AID partner witnessed a Territorial Election
Commission (TEC) chairwoman being "aggressively escorted"
from the TEC offices to the local Republican party
headquarters at around 11:00pm on election night. She
returned to the TEC some while later visibly shaken in her
demeanor. TEC members were later overheard outside,
horse-trading votes during a smoke break, while the OSCE
observers waited upstairs in the TEC office.

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COMMENT
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13. (C) ODIHR mission members told us how important it was
for the international community to get through the Armenian
election with its unanimity intact. That goal has been
achieved, but perhaps at the expense of complete objectivity
in assessing the poll. Finnish Ambassador Hakala (EU
Presidency Troika) told us she was exasperated by the EU
statements. Our own stance, more tentative and calling for
investigations of allegations of electoral wrongdoing, still
seems just right.
GODFREY