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ARMENIA: "OLIGARCHIC" PARTY GAINING GROUND AHEAD OF 2007 VOTE
Emil Danielyan
EurasiaNet, NY
Dec 20 2006
Multi-millionaire businessman Gagik Tsarukian is using populist
appeal and vast financial resources to make his political party,
Prosperous Armenia, a strong potential contender in next spring's
parliamentary elections.
The 50-year-old businessman, who arguably boasts Armenia's largest
fortune, has already spent millions of dollars on providing relief
aid, free medical treatment and other ordinarily public services to
tens of thousands of low-income people. The aid, heavily advertised
by Tsarukian-funded television stations, is prompting growing concern
among the country's mainstream political groups that view it as a
massive vote-buying operation.
Prosperous Armenia, set up a year ago, now claims to be by far
Armenia's largest political party. In a country with a population of
3 million, the party claims to have some 240,000 members and over
400 offices. "Everyone is surprised that we have managed to create
such a strong party within a short period of time," Tsarukian told
thousands of supporters in Yerevan on December 15. "I am not doing
this to gain something for myself," he said. "I have everything. I
just want us to live in a strong and prosperous country."
Tsarukian, better known to most Armenians as Dodi Gago, is
thought to be the wealthiest and most influential of Armenia's top
government-connected entrepreneurs, owning over a dozen big businesses
and living in a huge villa perched on a hilltop overlooking the
northern outskirts of Yerevan. Like other "oligarchs," Tsarukian
moves around in a motorcade of luxury cars with virtually identical
license plates, surrounded by intimidating bodyguards.
The unusually muscular tycoon, who reportedly served a prison sentence
for rape in Soviet times, rose to prominence in the late 1990s as
a minority shareholder in a French-owned brewery in Abovian, a town
15 kilometers north of the Armenian capital. His business empire has
since expanded dramatically, not least because of his close ties with
President Kocharian.
The dominant view among Armenian politicians and observers is that
Prosperous Armenia is the brainchild of Kocharian, who seems keen to
retain an influential role in government after completing his second
and final term in 2008. Opinion is only divided on whether the party
is meant to serve as a counterweight to the ruling Republican Party
of Armenia or as a powerful addition to the government camp.
Either way, Tsarukian's party appears to be winning over many
impoverished voters disillusioned with both the government and the
opposition. Over the past few months these voters have been bombarded
with television pictures of truckloads of wheat and potato seeds sent
by Tsarukian to villages across the country, most of them hard hit
by last summer's severe drought.
Defending Tsarukian, Kocharian insisted on December 15 that
Prosperous Armenia's success should not be attributed to its
"benevolent actions." "There is demand in our society for a new
political force that comes up with a very understandable slogan,
'We think about the people,'" he said in televised remarks.
Zvart Melkonian, a 77-year-old pensioner waiting to hear Tsarukian
speak in a conference hall in Yerevan's Malatia-Sebastia district,
had trouble remembering the party's name, but knew why she has
joined it. "I am 100 percent sure that he will make things better,"
she said. "He is kind and helps many people," agreed her husband
Andranik, also a party member.
The elderly couple is unlikely to care about the sharp contrast
between the scale of what Prosperous Armenia calls "humanitarian aid"
and the modest amount of taxes paid by Tsarukian-owned businesses.
The largest of them, a chain of petrol and liquefied gas stations,
was only 76th in the list of Armenia's 300 largest corporate taxpayers
that was released by the government last month.
"Everyone realizes that this money was stolen from all of us in the
form of unpaid taxes," said Isabella Sargsian, a young civil rights
activist. "At the same time, many people say, 'At least he is giving
back some of it.' And they are so delighted. This is what strikes me
the most."
Tsarukian has sought to minimize independent media coverage of his
political activities, refusing to give interviews or even to allow
journalists to be present at events organized by Prosperous Armenia.
A reporter for EurasiaNet who went to the party leader's indoors
meeting with some 2,000 party faithful at Malatia-Sebastia was promptly
spotted by security guards and told to leave the building.
Tsarukian's Kentron television station broadcast his speech the
next day.
Apparently unaware of the information blackout, leaders of Prosperous
Armenia's local chapters are far more talkative, revealing a
well-organized grassroots network. "We admit members on a daily basis,"
Felix Yayloyan, head of a party branch in another Yerevan district,
Arabkir, told EurasiaNet. In Yayloyan's office, charts detail the
dynamics of the ongoing recruitment process. Yayloyan insisted that
none of his nearly 5,000 local recruits, 42 percent of them unemployed,
was or will be compensated for joining Prosperous Armenia. The
party's sole "benevolent" activity in the area, he said, is to clean
up neighborhood courtyards, to enable all local schoolteachers to
undergo a gynecological examination and treatment free of charge, and
to select outstanding university students for Tsarukian's scholarships.
Other party figures admit privately that a large number of the people
jumping on Tsarukian's bandwagon have less than altruistic motives.
"Whoever has no job is joining Prosperous Armenia with material
expectations which can't be met," said one senior activist, who asked
not to be identified. "The challenge is to make sure these people
stick with us until the elections."
This will be an easy task in Abovian and surrounding villages, an area
widely regarded as Tsarukian's fiefdom. One of the villages, Aramus,
is quite affluent by Armenian standards and has not received much aid
from the tycoon. But even there support for him seems very strong. More
than a quarter of Aramus's 2,400 eligible voters are already affiliated
with Prosperous Armenia, according to the village administration.
It remains to be seen whether the party can do well in other parts of
Armenia that are dominated by other oligarchs and government-connected
clans. Most of them have already pledged allegiance to the Republican
Party of Armenia and its unofficial leader, Defense Minister Serzh
Sarkisian. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Whether
the Republican Party and Prosperous Armenia will clash during the
elections or amicably divide most parliament seats among themselves
is a matter of contention. Armenian authorities have assured the West
that the May 2007 elections will be more democratic than those held
in the past. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
For pro-democracy activists like Isabella Sargsian, however, the rise
of Tsarukian's party not only bodes ill for the freedom and fairness
of the polls, but also illustrates the weakness of civil society in
Armenia. The British-educated campaigner has organized youth protests
in Yerevan against government crackdowns on the opposition and engaged
in civic education projects in rural regions. "Maybe civil society
never existed here," she muses now. "The values on which our society
is based are quite different."
Editor's Note: Emil Danielyan is a Yerevan-based journalist and
political analyst.
Emil Danielyan
EurasiaNet, NY
Dec 20 2006
Multi-millionaire businessman Gagik Tsarukian is using populist
appeal and vast financial resources to make his political party,
Prosperous Armenia, a strong potential contender in next spring's
parliamentary elections.
The 50-year-old businessman, who arguably boasts Armenia's largest
fortune, has already spent millions of dollars on providing relief
aid, free medical treatment and other ordinarily public services to
tens of thousands of low-income people. The aid, heavily advertised
by Tsarukian-funded television stations, is prompting growing concern
among the country's mainstream political groups that view it as a
massive vote-buying operation.
Prosperous Armenia, set up a year ago, now claims to be by far
Armenia's largest political party. In a country with a population of
3 million, the party claims to have some 240,000 members and over
400 offices. "Everyone is surprised that we have managed to create
such a strong party within a short period of time," Tsarukian told
thousands of supporters in Yerevan on December 15. "I am not doing
this to gain something for myself," he said. "I have everything. I
just want us to live in a strong and prosperous country."
Tsarukian, better known to most Armenians as Dodi Gago, is
thought to be the wealthiest and most influential of Armenia's top
government-connected entrepreneurs, owning over a dozen big businesses
and living in a huge villa perched on a hilltop overlooking the
northern outskirts of Yerevan. Like other "oligarchs," Tsarukian
moves around in a motorcade of luxury cars with virtually identical
license plates, surrounded by intimidating bodyguards.
The unusually muscular tycoon, who reportedly served a prison sentence
for rape in Soviet times, rose to prominence in the late 1990s as
a minority shareholder in a French-owned brewery in Abovian, a town
15 kilometers north of the Armenian capital. His business empire has
since expanded dramatically, not least because of his close ties with
President Kocharian.
The dominant view among Armenian politicians and observers is that
Prosperous Armenia is the brainchild of Kocharian, who seems keen to
retain an influential role in government after completing his second
and final term in 2008. Opinion is only divided on whether the party
is meant to serve as a counterweight to the ruling Republican Party
of Armenia or as a powerful addition to the government camp.
Either way, Tsarukian's party appears to be winning over many
impoverished voters disillusioned with both the government and the
opposition. Over the past few months these voters have been bombarded
with television pictures of truckloads of wheat and potato seeds sent
by Tsarukian to villages across the country, most of them hard hit
by last summer's severe drought.
Defending Tsarukian, Kocharian insisted on December 15 that
Prosperous Armenia's success should not be attributed to its
"benevolent actions." "There is demand in our society for a new
political force that comes up with a very understandable slogan,
'We think about the people,'" he said in televised remarks.
Zvart Melkonian, a 77-year-old pensioner waiting to hear Tsarukian
speak in a conference hall in Yerevan's Malatia-Sebastia district,
had trouble remembering the party's name, but knew why she has
joined it. "I am 100 percent sure that he will make things better,"
she said. "He is kind and helps many people," agreed her husband
Andranik, also a party member.
The elderly couple is unlikely to care about the sharp contrast
between the scale of what Prosperous Armenia calls "humanitarian aid"
and the modest amount of taxes paid by Tsarukian-owned businesses.
The largest of them, a chain of petrol and liquefied gas stations,
was only 76th in the list of Armenia's 300 largest corporate taxpayers
that was released by the government last month.
"Everyone realizes that this money was stolen from all of us in the
form of unpaid taxes," said Isabella Sargsian, a young civil rights
activist. "At the same time, many people say, 'At least he is giving
back some of it.' And they are so delighted. This is what strikes me
the most."
Tsarukian has sought to minimize independent media coverage of his
political activities, refusing to give interviews or even to allow
journalists to be present at events organized by Prosperous Armenia.
A reporter for EurasiaNet who went to the party leader's indoors
meeting with some 2,000 party faithful at Malatia-Sebastia was promptly
spotted by security guards and told to leave the building.
Tsarukian's Kentron television station broadcast his speech the
next day.
Apparently unaware of the information blackout, leaders of Prosperous
Armenia's local chapters are far more talkative, revealing a
well-organized grassroots network. "We admit members on a daily basis,"
Felix Yayloyan, head of a party branch in another Yerevan district,
Arabkir, told EurasiaNet. In Yayloyan's office, charts detail the
dynamics of the ongoing recruitment process. Yayloyan insisted that
none of his nearly 5,000 local recruits, 42 percent of them unemployed,
was or will be compensated for joining Prosperous Armenia. The
party's sole "benevolent" activity in the area, he said, is to clean
up neighborhood courtyards, to enable all local schoolteachers to
undergo a gynecological examination and treatment free of charge, and
to select outstanding university students for Tsarukian's scholarships.
Other party figures admit privately that a large number of the people
jumping on Tsarukian's bandwagon have less than altruistic motives.
"Whoever has no job is joining Prosperous Armenia with material
expectations which can't be met," said one senior activist, who asked
not to be identified. "The challenge is to make sure these people
stick with us until the elections."
This will be an easy task in Abovian and surrounding villages, an area
widely regarded as Tsarukian's fiefdom. One of the villages, Aramus,
is quite affluent by Armenian standards and has not received much aid
from the tycoon. But even there support for him seems very strong. More
than a quarter of Aramus's 2,400 eligible voters are already affiliated
with Prosperous Armenia, according to the village administration.
It remains to be seen whether the party can do well in other parts of
Armenia that are dominated by other oligarchs and government-connected
clans. Most of them have already pledged allegiance to the Republican
Party of Armenia and its unofficial leader, Defense Minister Serzh
Sarkisian. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Whether
the Republican Party and Prosperous Armenia will clash during the
elections or amicably divide most parliament seats among themselves
is a matter of contention. Armenian authorities have assured the West
that the May 2007 elections will be more democratic than those held
in the past. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
For pro-democracy activists like Isabella Sargsian, however, the rise
of Tsarukian's party not only bodes ill for the freedom and fairness
of the polls, but also illustrates the weakness of civil society in
Armenia. The British-educated campaigner has organized youth protests
in Yerevan against government crackdowns on the opposition and engaged
in civic education projects in rural regions. "Maybe civil society
never existed here," she muses now. "The values on which our society
is based are quite different."
Editor's Note: Emil Danielyan is a Yerevan-based journalist and
political analyst.