BITTER LEMONS: ELECTION TENSION TURNS FUNERAL

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 YEREVAN 000140

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

DEPT FOR EUR/CARC

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/14/2018
TAGS: PROG PREL KDEM AM
SUBJECT: BITTER LEMONS: ELECTION TENSION TURNS FUNERAL
GATHERING INTO SHOUTING MATCH


Classified By: CDA JOSEPH PENNINGTON, REASONS 1.4 B/D.


--------------
SUMMARY
--------------


1. (C) During a pre-election regional reporting trip to the
northwestern city of Stepanavan, PolOff uncomfortably watched
a funeral gathering degenerate into a tense shouting match
between friends and family when discussion turned to
Armenia's approaching February 19 presidential election.
Forgetting for a moment that their 80-year-old father had
been buried the day before, family members and close friends
angrily accused each other and their preferred presidential
candidates of being liars. The shouting match, which ended
tensely with people breaking up early to go home, revealed
the depth of the divisions and tensions that the presidential
race has created within Armenian families, even in the
remotest corners of the country. END SUMMARY.

-------------- -
FORMER PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEER PAYS HIS RESPECTS
-------------- -


2. (U) On February 13, PolOff traveled to the northwestern
city of Stepanavan -- where he served as a Peace Corps
volunteer in 1992-94 -- to gauge the pre-election atmosphere.
With a current population of 18,000, Stepanavan is also a
hub city for the surrounding 20 villages that boast a
collective population of 17,000. Known for its scenic
mountain vistas and status as a former health tourism
destination for Soviet citizens, Stepanavan nowadays is an
agricultural center and major stop along one of the two
principal transportation routes that connect Armenia with
Georgia. It is also known to be a quiet, sleepy city where
people are usually more preoccupied with their crops and
harvests than anything else.


3. (C) Upon his evening arrival, he phoned old friends to see
if he could pay them an informal visit, and subsequently was
informed that their 80-year-old father had just died of a
stroke and been buried the day before. Putting aside their
grief, which had been compounded by the loss of their
80-year-old mother six months before, they invited PolOff to
a small post-funeral commemoration they were holding for
family and close friends.

--------------
EVENING TURNS UGLY WITH ELECTION TALK
--------------


4. (C) The gathering of nine friends and family, all between
50-70 years of age, included the middle-aged daughter and son
of the deceased. Also present were the siblings' spouses, a
68-year-old sister of the deceased, and four close friends of
the family. The latter included three women who were
teachers and a 70-year-old female neighbor on pension. After
a half hour of somber embraces and exchange of condolences,
the discussion turned to the topic of Armenia's presidential
election when PolOff tried to delicately raise the subject.


5. (C) The sparks began to fly at this point, when one of the
teachers called the ruling authorities and the presidential
campaign of front-runner Serzh Sargsian "liars," pledging her
support to ex-president Levon Ter-Petrossian. She told
PolOff that people in Stepanavan are "scared" to say who they
will vote for. The son of the deceased, a colonel in the
Armenian army who has worked at the Stepanavan army base for
the last 25 years, became enraged at this comment, and
blasted the teacher for supporting a "crook."


6. (C) A Republican Party member, with his wife sitting at
his side, the son (colonel) unleashed a vitriolic attack on
the LTP era and his supporters, accusing the first president
of selling off state assets and shutting down Armenian
industry while people "huddled" in their sub-freezing homes.
He enumerated various national industrial enterprises LTP had
allegedly sold off to party cronies in the nineties, who the
colonel then charged had pocketed the profits. Citing a TV
report he had just seen on TV, the colonel called it an
ouright lie that LTP had gone to Moscow to shore up Russian
support the day before, which he said was nothing but another
"campaign ploy" designed to deceive voters.


7. (C) Requesting PolOff not disclose the information,

YEREVAN 00000140 002 OF 003


another teacher chimed in that she and other teachers were
being pressured to vote for Sargsian by the director of the
agricultural college where she worked. (NOTE: The same
director told PolOff in a meeting the following afternoon
that the Minister of Agriculture, a member of the Armenian
Revolutionary Federation ) Dashnaktsutyun, had given
instructions to all Ministry employees, including
agricultural college directors, to vote for the Dashnak
presidential candidate Vahan Hovannisian. On his tour of the
premises, however, PolOff spotted significant political
propaganda for Serzh Sargsian scattered throughout the new
teachers' quarters that the director proudly showed him.
Poloff had taught English at the college fifteen years ago.
However, the USDA attache separately learned that Armenia's
Chief Veterinary Officer, with the MinAg, had directed his
entire organization to campaign and vote for the Republican
candidate. END NOTE.)

--------------
SERZH DELIVERS STABILITY, LTP ONLY LIES
--------------


8. (C) Both teachers, and the retired pensioner, yelled at
the army colonel, saying he was being hoodwinked by the
authorities, and urged him to "open his eyes." The pensioner
said she didn't trust anybody, that all Armenian leaders are
crooks and liars who steal from the people, and as a result
intended to boycott the vote. She scoffed at the recent 60
percent increase in pensions, which she herself benefited
from, and said it was an election ploy. "We usually get
increases of only 2000 drams (approx USD 6.65) per year," she
said, wondering out loud why they decided to raise it so high
immediately before the start of the election season. One of
the teachers alleged that her Yerevan-employed husband, an
LTP supporter, had come to Stepanavan the day before only to
discover that three additional names had been listed at their
registered voting address. She said this proved that the
authorities intended to falsify the vote.


9. (C) The army colonel brushed off the allegations as
"campaign provocations," and declared that Sargsian had so
much support that he didn't need to stoop to such tactics.
He then went on the attack again, saying how his father in
the days before his death had lamented to him how his
grandsons' Russian-language education had been "stunted" by
LTP. Apparently LTP, in his early days of his first
administration, had ordered the Education Ministry to give
priority to Armenian-language curricula at the expense of
Russian curricula. The dying man told his son he had been
shocked when his second grandson could not read Russian after
graduating from secondary school several years before.
(NOTE: Both grandsons are officers in the Armenian army; one
is stationed at the Stepanavan base and the other is
currently eight months into his service in Nagorno-Karabakh.
END NOTE.)


10. (C) Both spouses (a woman and a man) of the children of
the deceased, one of whom was a registered Republican (the
woman),said they were voting for Serzh because only he out
of the nine candidates in the field could provide Armenian
with stability. The man said LTP had "lied" to Stepanavan
before, and had already "had his chance." When asked why
Armenians linked economic growth with Serzh Sargsian, who has
always held security portfolios, the army colonel proudly
boasted that "Serzh gave us the stability" necessary to grow.
He also emphasized that wherever Serzh had worked in the
government, he had always succeeded in increasing the
salaries of his employees.


11. (C) The daughter of the deceased looked to be at a loss
for words in the heated political discussion. She sheepishly
looked at PolOff, then her female friends, and plaintively
suggested, "Ladies, why don't we vote for Artur
Baghdassarian, he appears to be an honest person." Her
brother, the colonel, immediately dismissed the 39-year-old
leader of the Orinats Yerkir (Rule of Law) party as a
silver-tongued opportunist who could not be trusted with the
reigns of the country.


12. (C) The teachers then tried to tell PolOff -- below the
shouting of the colonel -- that Armenians were being
"brainwashed" by public television, which they said was
"nothing but a mouthpiece" for the ruling authorities. One
said she was sure that the recent fire that had gutted two
floors at the Ministry of Justice in Yerevan, including one
of the Ministry's archives, was politically motivated to

YEREVAN 00000140 003 OF 003


ensure a cover-up of material on file that was embarrassing
to the authorities.

-------------- --
GATHERING BREAKS UP EARLY, LEAVING BITTER TASTE
-------------- --


13. (C) After an hour of heated discussion, shouting, and
interruptions, the daughter of the deceased suggested they
conclude the evening and go home. The teachers continued to
fume about the corruption of the authorities even as they
were putting on their winter jackets and attire for the cold
night outside. The colonel shrugged off everything they had
to say, and went outside to heat up his car. The reason for
the gathering, to commemorate the death of a loved one,
appeared to vanish into the night, leaving friends and family
with bitter feelings.

--------------
COMMENT
--------------


14. (C) PolOff was taken aback by two things during the
evening. First, that people he had previously known to be
politically passive had become visibly politicized by the
presidential election. Second, that the increasingly
acrimonious presidential race has created equally bitter
divisions in Armenian families, who for the most part
normally don't wear politics on their sleeves. But as the
evening showed, this is no ordinary presidential election, as
people here appear to view it as a decisive turning point for
Armenia.
PENNINGTON