MAYOR ASSURES AMBASSADOR OF CLEAN YEREVAN ELECTION

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 YEREVAN 000305 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/10/2019 TAGS: PGOV PHUM PREL KDEM KJUS AM SUBJECT: MAYOR ASSURES AMBASSADOR OF CLEAN YEREVAN ELECTION YEREVAN 00000305 001.2 OF 002 Classified By: AMB Marie L. Yovanovitch, reasons 1.4 (b,d) -------------- SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. (C) During the Ambassador's courtesy call on Yerevan's newly-appointed mayor and mayoral candidate, Gagik Beglarian maintained he would run a clean election campaign and that the May 31 Yerevan municipal election would be free and fair. Beglarian said he has no reason to resort to dirty tricks, in light of his past election experiences where he thrice lost to ruling power candidates who -- he alleged -- fixed the elections. If his party wins on May 31, his priority as Yerevan's first elected mayor will be to coordinate the management of Yerevan's 12 prefectures under the roof of the municipality. The Ambassador highlighted to Beglarian the importance of the upcoming election for restoring the trust of Armenian citizens as well as the international image of Armenia after the disputed 2008 presidential election, its tragic fallout, and the tainted September 2008 Kentron prefecture election Beglarian won. END SUMMARY. -------------- "I DON'T WANT TO BE HATED" IF ELECTED MAYOR -------------- ¶2. (C) During the Ambassador's courtesy call on April 23 to incumbent mayor Gagik Beglarian, Beglarian discussed his campaign for the upcoming Yerevan City Council election, as well as his priorities as Yerevan Mayor if his ruling Republican Party succeeds in winning a majority on the council. Beglarian, who was twice elected -- in 2002 and 2008 -- the prefect of Yerevan's affluent "Kentron" (Center City) district, was abruptly appointed incumbent mayor March 4 by President Serzh Sargsian, just after being announced as the ruling party candidate. Beglarian is believed to have relied on abuse of administrative resources, fraud, intimidation tactics, and possibly criminal ties in both his election as prefect and during his management of Kentron, where (in accordance with local tradition) it is said he has handsomely profited from shady real estate dealings. During the 2008 vote, Embassy observers witnessed some of these tactics in use. Beglarian is more commonly known by his street nickname Chorny Gago (which translates as "Black Gago"). (NOTE: Yerevan voters will indirectly elect the mayor. As head of the ruling party,s candidate list for the city council, Beglarian is de facto the Republicans, mayoral candidate. END NOTE) ¶3. (C) Beglarian insisted to the Ambassador that he plans to run a clean campaign for Yerevan's City Council election on May 31, saying he "wants to be popular where I was born and raised," and "I do not want to be hated, like others before me, for occupying positions of authority." He said that he plans ambitious outreach during the campaign, and said "there are other ways to get 1,000 votes than ballot-stuffing." Beglarian detailed how he plans to address pressing needs in eight out of Yerevan's 12 prefectures even before the election, with road repair, lighting, and landscaping topping the list. He welcomed anybody with evidence of voting irregularities to file a complaint after the election, like he said he himself had filed in elections past. He warned that the political opposition was going to resort to provocative tactics, and that "the opposition always says the elections are unfair." Beglarian rejected charges that his September 2008 Kentron election benefited from ballot-stuffing, violence, and vote-count irregularities, boasting that "not one single complaint" had been (officially) lodged against him by the opposition. ¶4. (C) In spite of his assurances, the Ambassador urged Beglarian to run a clean campaign, and expressed hope that the Yerevan municipal election will be free and fair especially since the election involves one-third of the country's population. The Ambassador stated that the election has a lot riding on it, in light of the disputed 2008 presidential election, its tragic fallout, and the voting irregularities that surfaced in Beglarian's September 2008 re-election as Kentron prefect. The Ambassador said the election represented an opportunity to restore people's trust in elections, and to repair Armenia's international reputation that the 2008 presidential election badly damaged. While it was important to use the courts to file an election complaint after elections, many Armenians found this futile given the appearance of an arbitrary administration of justice. -------------- - AN ELECTION VETERAN WITH THE SCARS TO PROVE IT -------------- - YEREVAN 00000305 002 OF 002 ¶5. (C) Beglarian stated to the Ambassador that he had no reason to stoop to dirty tricks, because he had been on the losing end of these in previous elections and knew how it felt. After being elected in 1993 as Armenia's youngest member to its Supreme Council -- the predecessor of today's National Assembly -- Beglarian alleged that in 1995 he was prevented by the authorities from running during the first elections to the National Assembly itself; saw his 1996 election as prefect of Yerevan's "Kentron" district stolen by an ally of then-President Levon Ter-Petrossian; and also that his 1999 election to parliament was stolen by the fugitive oligarch and LTP ally Khachatur Sukiasian. Since then, Beglarian was twice elected prefect of Kentron, in 2002 and again in September, 2008. In addressing the Ambassador's call for clean elections, Beglarian maintained that "I cannot allow all of this (election dirty tricks) to happen again, since I lived through it." -------------- PRIORITIES AS MAYOR -------------- ¶6. (C) According to Beglarian, previous coordination between Yerevan's mayor and its 12 prefects did not work, because of the fact that the prefects were elected and the mayor was not. Beglarian said the new law on Yerevan's administrative status will allow the municipality to run Yerevan as one "unified" organization. Since being appointed in March, Beglarian says he has already begun improving coordination, so that what is proposed by the Municipality is no longer "rejected" by the prefectures. (Note: Armenia's presidents have appointed the mayors of Yerevan from 1995 (the year Armenia adopted its first post-Soviet constitution) until now. This was analogous to the situation in the regions, with the Yerevan mayor equivalent in authority to the presidentially-appointed regional governors (marzpets),while the 12 Yerevan district prefects were elected, much like other city mayors are elected. The new procedure will indirectly elect the mayor via an elected city council, and the district prefects will then be appointed by the mayor. End Note) ¶7. (C) Beglarian mentioned as priorities better coordination on garbage collection and landscaping, and improving the state of Soviet-era housing. Beglarian said he plans to take away garbage collection duties from the 12 prefectures and centralize it under the municipality. He said another issue that needed addressing was tending to Yerevan's aging Soviet-era housing inventory, which is creating a drag on the city's infrastructure. In this regard, he plans to push for a change to the housing code so that more responsibility is put on homeowners' associations to address priority issues such as roofing repairs. Lastly, Beglarian said he plans to beautify Yerevan in order to promote greater tourism to Armenia. (Note: We are already seeing the beautifications and road repair programs being implemented. End Note) -------------- COMMENT -------------- ¶8. (C) We have yet to meet an interlocutor who can offer any plausible reason why the previous long-serving incumbent mayor was sacked and Beglarian appointed to the mayorship just weeks before the opening of the election campaign in which he was to run for the spot. The buzz, almost certainly correct, is that this was nothing more than a cynical ploy to ensure that the person who will control the city,s levers of power throughout the campaign period is the man with the greatest incentive to be sure that the ruling party wins: the candidate himself. The feeling is that the prior incumbent -- himself a thoroughly tainted party-machine figure, presumably disgruntled over being pushed aside -- would not be sufficiently motivated to ensure the "right" outcome. YOVANOVITCH