Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
08YEREVAN204
2008-03-10 14:58:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Yerevan
Cable title:  

ARMENIA'S POLITICAL FUTURE -- WHERE DO WE GO FROM

Tags:  PGOV PREL PHUM ASEC KDEM AM 
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TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 7158
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RHMFISS/HQ USEUCOM VAIHINGEN GE//ECJ4/ECJ5-A/ECJ1/ECJ37// PRIORITY
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RUEKJCS/JOINT STAFF WASHINGTON DC//J5/RUE// PRIORITY
RUEHLMC/MILLENNIUM CHALLENGE CORPORATION WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 YEREVAN 000204 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/09/2018
TAGS: PGOV PREL PHUM ASEC KDEM AM
SUBJECT: ARMENIA'S POLITICAL FUTURE -- WHERE DO WE GO FROM
HERE?


YEREVAN 00000204 001.2 OF 004


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 04 YEREVAN 000204

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/09/2018
TAGS: PGOV PREL PHUM ASEC KDEM AM
SUBJECT: ARMENIA'S POLITICAL FUTURE -- WHERE DO WE GO FROM
HERE?


YEREVAN 00000204 001.2 OF 004


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


1. (C) SUMMARY: Mounting evidence -- including the latest
ODIHR interim report -- has called into question the
government's claim that PM Serzh Sargsian won a legitimate
first-round majority on February 19. This result, combined
with the subsequent heavy-handed use of force and declared
State of Emergency, has left PM Sargsian with a severe crisis
of legitimacy. Opinions differ as to the PM's personally
culpability, as many place the blame with President
Kocharian. Given the March 8 Constitutional Court decision
validating the official results, there is no chance that the
government will back down and submit to a second round -- the
result that most Armenians likely view as the fairest
outcome. We can predict several possible scenarios, one of
which is that the president-elect will defuse the political
crisis with bold democratic moves that win back popular
support and legitimacy. Just as likely, we fear, is that
Sargsian will enter a vicious cycle in which he relies on the
police and security services to crack down on dissent,
fueling more public outrage, which will deepen the crisis and
increase Sargsian's dependency on security forces to hold
onto power -- a recipe for either perennial risk of
instability or a permanently more authoritarian political
environment. If Sargsian takes bold steps down a democratic
path, we should reward and encourage that, and facilitate a
genuine opening for the legitimate opposition. Given that
his professed commitment to reform is largely unproven,
however, Sargsian must take the first steps himself. Our
course should be calibrated based on PM's demonstration of
leadership in a positive direction. We should make clear
that, absent such leadership, our current level of
partnership with the GOAM will become unsustainable. END
SUMMARY.

HARD TRUTHS
--------------


2. (C) Our policy deliberations must negotiate among a
thicket of harsh realities that leave us with few truly

appealing choices:

-- Most observers do not believe PM Serzh Sargsian did not
legitimately won a first round majority in the election. We
find it increasingly hard to argue.

-- This may not have been his own doing. President
Kocharian and other influential, anti-democratic forces may
each have had their own reasons for engineering this outcome.
However, Sargsian at best has failed to take a strong stand
against it, or the subsequent harsh crackdown.

-- Serzh Sargsian has been an excellent, and pro-Western
partner as defense minister, accelerating Armenia's
Euro-Atlantic engagement.

-- Sargsian's main rival, former President Levon
Ter-Petrossian (LTP),is no angel. His own presidential
administration from independence through 1998 grew
increasingly authoritarian and corrupt, and he stole the 1996
presidential election to hold onto power. He and his
advisers have privately made clear all along that they fully
expected the authorities to steal the election, and thus the
LTP strategy was always focused more on post-election public
demonstrations to force the government from power, rather
than a strategy simply to win at the ballot box.

-- Events did not prove the LTP camp wrong regarding regime
election behavior. While their confrontational style and
rhetoric leave a bad taste, there may have been little
alternative. Authorities systematically closed down many of
the avenues for the opposition to win through an honest poll
on Election Day.

-- LTP is not an isolated extremist. Official figures gave
him 21.5 percent (just over 350,000) of votes cast on
February 19, and the true figure is doubtless substantially
higher. Our best guess would be somewhere between 30-35
percent (490,000 - 570,000 votes). His popular support has
only grown in the past two weeks. Many Armenians tell us
"it's not about LTP anymore, it's about this government's
behavior."

-- Post-election events have made LTP into by far the most
legitimate opposition political figure -- more so than all
the others combined. The regime's use of force against
peaceful demonstrators, the media blackout, and other
elements of the crackdown have increased popular outrage, and

YEREVAN 00000204 002.2 OF 004


by default made LTP supporters out of many who still dislike
the man. If a run-off election were held now, LTP would
very likely beat Sargsian. Many Armenians now see LTP as the
only one with a chance to break down what they see as the
deepening entrenchment of a Karabakhi-led kleptocracy in
Armenia, seemingly determined to monopolize every lever of
political and economic power.

-- However much we might suspect LTP's motives and methods,
during the current election cycle, he and his supporters are
predominantly the victims while Sargsian's supporters were
the wrong-doers. However, it must also be acknowledged that
there was a cadre of perhaps several hundred people -- within
the perhaps 20,000 people protesting in front of the French
Embassy -- which seemed to be pre-prepared and spoiling for a
violent confrontation with police. LTP's most radical
lieutenant, Nikol Pashinian, used extreme rhetoric to exhort
protesters to fight. LTP distanced himself from this in our
subsequent private conversation, but it is very possible that
he was aware and approved of this militant cadre in advance.

-- It may indeed be the case that Serzh Sargsian is, in his
heart, more progressive and democratic than his longtime
friend and close political partner Robert Kocharian. There
have been tantalizing hints that give room for hope on this
score. It could also be the case that Sargsian desperately
needs public legitimacy and Western support in order to have
the political strength to oust the most corrupt, noxious, and
thuggish elements which are now key pillars of the
government.

-- Withholding that support may pull the rug out from under
what could be Sargsian's sincere desire to clean house. This
may, indeed, have been Kocharian and other influential
figures' goal all along -- to ensure that Sargsian's election
was so tainted as to make it impossible for Sargsian to
marginalize them in the post-election political
constellation.

-- Even if that hypothesis is true, it is probably too late
to overcome the damage now. The election is irreparably
tainted and Sargsian's legitimacy is in tatters. There may
be just enough manuevering room left for him to break
publicly with Kocharian, announce a series of bold gestures
that tacitly admit these mistakes, aggressively move to clean
up the mess. Sargsian's inclination and stomach for taking
this course is unproven. Unlike Kocharian, Sargsian has no
reputation for boldness -- quite the contrary. It is
nonetheless the approach we have urged to the PM and his
advisers.

-- In local perception there is practically no middle ground
on which to stand. Almost anything we do will be read
locally either as supporting the regime or supporting LTP.
Either side will be eager to use and abuse our statements or
actions to their own perceived political benefit, and there
is little we can do about that.


LIKELY SCENARIOS
--------------


3. (C) SCENARIO 1 -- PROTRACTED STALEMATE, INSTABILITY,
REPRESSION: We fear the mostly likely scenario over the
medium to long term is that Sargsian will go along with
regime elements counselling tough measures. Underestimating
the size, strength, and depth of public sympathy that has
been generated for LTP, Sargsian will attempt to crush the
LTP-led opposition through police, security services, and
prosecutions, jailing many key LTP lieutenants and possibly
LTP himself on politically motivated charges. This will make
LTP even more of a hero-martyr of democracy. He will find
himself relying ever more heavily on a political crackdown to
stay in control, and Armenia will end up much more
authoritarian than it has ever been since the Soviet period.


4. (C) SCENARIO 2 -- KOCHARIAN IS CORRECT, OUTRAGE PASSES,
STOICISM SETS IN: It may be that -- as President Kocharian
predicted to DAS Bryza during his recent visit -- the
widespread popular outrage will die down more quickly and
comprehensively than we now suspect. Keeping key organizers
in prison may over time be sufficient to keep protests from
gaining traction, and society may settle back down into the
quiescent, semi-authoritarianism that prevailed throughout
Kocharian's administration. A type of normalcy will resume,
in which the broadcast media remain tightly controlled by
pro-regime forces, and various elements of society know where
the boundaries are. This is a recipe for stagnation and

YEREVAN 00000204 003.2 OF 004


steady deepening of political and economic corruption, behind
a window-dressing of democratic platitudes and Westernization
-- until the next flashpoint emerges on some future day.


5. (C) SCENARIO 3 -- SARGSIAN IS A VISIONARY LEADER AFTER
ALL: The most constructive move Sargsian could realistically
make would be to make dramatic steps to promote national
reconciliation, and to show his commitment to combat the
thuggish and corrupt elements of government. Ending the
state of emergency and media blackout are important steps, as
would be ending the flagrantly partisan programming now
airing on public television. Longer term, management changes
in the national television/radio regulatory commission and in
the Public Television channel to introduce objectivity and
balance would be very positive steps. By prosecuting
pro-governmental as well as oppositional figures for election
and post-election crimes, while freeing the majority of
pro-opposition figures that have been arrested, he could
establish fresh credibility. His choice of a new prime
minister and cabinet will be an important bellwether of the
direction he intends; a good crop of fresh, clean faces would
win public approval, while recycling corrupt ones would
deepen public cynicism.


6. (C) SCENARIO 4 -- SARGSIAN FALLS: We have been surprised
that several serious, non-opposition political thinkers have
independently told us privately that they expect, based on
events of the past two weeks, that Serzh Sargsian will be
unable to hold power for more than a year or two. This
argument holds that the opposition genie is now out of the
bottle. Armenians are widely shocked and traumatized by the
events of March 1. No Armenian government has before been
responsible for suppressing opposition protests so forcefully
as to lead to fatalities. An accelerating cycle of reaction
and counter-reaction (as postulated in Scenario 1),could get
out of Sargsian's control or require a more heavy-handed
response than the security forces themselves are prepared to
stomach. Some Armenian political observers insist to us that
Armenians are different from other post-Soviet societies, in
that they have a lower willingness to tolerate state
violence. They are proud of their history of standing up
against Soviet tanks in 1988 to demand independence, and have
a highly developed sense of national unity. Armenian
soldiers and police firing on Armenian citizens is seen by
many as crossing the Rubicon. Depending on how events
unfold, LTP could yet manage to harness enough public outrage
to provoke a people-power revolution. Alternatively, in the
face of a rising cycle of crises, Sargsian could face the
fate that LTP himself faced in 1998, and be ousted by an
insiders' coup.


WHAT CAN WE DO?
--------------


7. (C) REWARD GOOD BEHAVIOR: In the near term, the best
strategy available to us is to support in whatever way we can
any genuine efforts from PM Sargsian along the lines of
Scenario 3 above. We have repeatedly urged these types of
gestures to the PM and his aides, and will continue to do so.
We have already and will continue to convey messages back
and forth between the government and the LTP camp to the
extent the two parties find that constructive.


8. (C) WHILE NOT COMPROMISING OUR PRINCIPLES: Equally as
important as encouraging the prime minister and other
stakeholders to do the right things, will be for us to tell
the truth as we see it. We strongly believe that we do
neither the Prime Minister nor Armenian democracy any favors
if we soft-pedal our criticism of anti-democratic behaviors,
whether from the government or opposition side. We must send
firm and clear messages to the PM and other government
interlocutors, as well as to the opposition, that we will
hold them accountable for the way they manage this crisis.
Bad behavior will lead to consequences in U.S. engagement and
assistance. In the long run, Armenian public opinion (which
tends to have a surprisingly long memory) will hold us
accountable for whether we are seen to stand up for
democratic principles. We should not allow our hopes for
Sargsian's better nature to run too far ahead of
demonstrated, tangible commitments on his part.


9. (C) WHEN TO CONGRATULATE SARGSIAN: There was much
discussion during EUR DAS Bryza's visit here last week among
the Western diplomatic missions about when those capitals
which have not formally congratulated Sargsian for winning
the presidency should do so. Our view is that a White House
congratulations would not be appropriate under the current

YEREVAN 00000204 004.2 OF 004


state of emergency and media blackout. We recommend that
such congratulations be deferred until A) after the state of
emergency is lifted, or B) just before the April 9
inauguration date, whichever comes first. We recommend that
the congratulatory message also include messages about the
need to address political divisions in Armenia.
PENNINGTON