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THE MYSTERY OF COMPETITIVE CAUCASUS ELECTIONS
By Thomas de Waal
hetq 16:43, August 9, 2012
(The following opinion piece appeared in the August 9, 2012 edition
of The National Interest)
A curious election took place recently in the Caucasus. It attracted
very little notice but deserved more. In the tiny, unrecognized
territory of Nagorny Karabakh-entirely Armenian but still regarded
by the world as de jure part of Azerbaijan-an opposition candidate
for president did extremely well.
With no support from any political party and in a place with a
strong tradition of government control, Vitaly Balasanian collected
32 percent of the vote against the incumbent Bako Saakian, who was
reelected president. According to local statistics, about seventy
thousand people voted. Balasanian's was an impressive performance
by any standards. In most of the former Soviet Union, opposition
candidates do not get a third of the vote. The result was even more
striking in the limited conditions of Nagorny Karabakh. In Armenia's
last-disputed-presidential election, former president and head of
the opposition Levon Ter-Petrosian was awarded 21 percent of the
vote. The Armenian opposition may now take heart ahead of the next
presidential election there, due in February 2013.
This was not an election fought primarily over foreign or security
policy. There was consensus on the issue of Nagorny Karabakh's status,
with both main candidates maintaining that the territory should be
an independent state, separate from Azerbaijan. Having been a leading
military commander in the conflict of 1991-1994, Balasanian's patriotic
credentials were unimpeachable, and he actually took a harder-line
position than his rival: he said that Karabakh should insist on being
represented at the negotiating table and unequivocally rejected the
return of the occupied territories around Karabakh to Azerbaijan
(a central part of the peace deal currently on the table, accepted
by Yerevan).
The differences were over domestic policy, with the discontent of
voters perhaps more directed against the controversial prime minister,
Arayik Harutyunyan, than against the president. The opposition
candidate picked up his strongest support in three rural regions,
Askeran, Martakert and Martuni, where socio-economic problems are
greatest.
The Karabakh election conforms to a curious trend whereby some of the
most competitive elections in the post-Soviet space are in unrecognized
or partially recognized territories.
Separatist Transnistria recently chose as its new leader a young
parliamentarian Yevgeny Shevchuk, who defeated the candidates more
favored by the old guard and by Moscow. Abkhazia has had two fiercely
competitive elections in 2004 and 2011, in which the candidate
positioning himself as the outsider prevailed both times. Even
South Ossetia, whose current population is estimated at no more than
forty thousand and whose budget is 99 percent supported by Russia,
managed to hold a dramatic semifarcical election last year in which
the opposition candidate, Alla Jiyoeva, won. The results of that
ballot were then annulled, but the eventual winner, Leonid Tibilov,
was by local standards a fairly independent candidate who has appointed
Jiyoeva to his cabinet.
What is going on here? If I have an explanation it is that,
paradoxically, because statehood is weaker in these territories,
ordinary members of society are more self-reliant and less susceptible
to pressure. There is more politics from below. But I would use the
word "competitive" advisedly. These are not regular elections. There
is a democratic deficit in part because these territories are not
recognized sovereign states (although this should not disqualify them
from having democratic aspirations.)
More problematic is the issue of the "missing populations," Azerbaijani
and Georgian, that cannot take part in the vote because they were
displaced by war. In the last Soviet census of 1988, 23 percent of
the population of Nagorny Karabakh was Azerbaijani. All of those
people are now refugees inside their own country.
What is a proper international verdict on a poll like such as one?
International observers continue to tie themselves in knots, satisfying
neither the Armenian side ("Why do you ignore us if we hold a good
democratic election?") nor the Azerbaijanis ("Don't give any credence
to a territory that no one, not even Armenia, has recognized as
sovereign.") Freedom House has begun to give democracy ratings to
the breakaway territories but has almost no direct presence on the
ground to make its judgment.
At the very least, there is a political judgment that the citizens
of these lands have a crucial stake in the eventual peace settlements
of the conflicts and that it is desirable for them to have legitimate
leaders who can speak on their behalf.
In March 1992, making plans for a peace conference on the Karabakh
conflict (that has still not been held twenty years on), the then
Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, now the OSCE,
first tried to square this circle by stating that "elected and other
representatives of Nagorno-Karabakh [ie Armenians and Azerbaijanis
respectively] will be invited to the Conference."
The current OSCE mediators did their best to continue this line in
their latest statement, saying "The Co-Chairs acknowledge the need
for the de facto authorities in NK to try to organize democratically
the public life of their population with such a procedure. However,
the Co-Chairs note that none of their three countries, nor any other
country, recognizes Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent and sovereign
state."
Along the same lines, the EU foreign policy chief Baroness Ashton
issued a statement, criticizing the basis for the election but not the
election itself: "I would like to reiterate that the European Union
does not recognise the constitutional and legal framework in which they
will be held. These 'elections' should not prejudice the determination
of the future status of Nagorno-Karabakh in the negotiated general
framework of the peaceful settlement of the conflict."
The rather tortured language of these statements reflects an underlying
discomfort. The longer these protracted post-Soviet conflicts remain
unresolved, these elections pose an international challenge which is
growing, not diminishing.
Thomas de Waal is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace.
By Thomas de Waal
hetq 16:43, August 9, 2012
(The following opinion piece appeared in the August 9, 2012 edition
of The National Interest)
A curious election took place recently in the Caucasus. It attracted
very little notice but deserved more. In the tiny, unrecognized
territory of Nagorny Karabakh-entirely Armenian but still regarded
by the world as de jure part of Azerbaijan-an opposition candidate
for president did extremely well.
With no support from any political party and in a place with a
strong tradition of government control, Vitaly Balasanian collected
32 percent of the vote against the incumbent Bako Saakian, who was
reelected president. According to local statistics, about seventy
thousand people voted. Balasanian's was an impressive performance
by any standards. In most of the former Soviet Union, opposition
candidates do not get a third of the vote. The result was even more
striking in the limited conditions of Nagorny Karabakh. In Armenia's
last-disputed-presidential election, former president and head of
the opposition Levon Ter-Petrosian was awarded 21 percent of the
vote. The Armenian opposition may now take heart ahead of the next
presidential election there, due in February 2013.
This was not an election fought primarily over foreign or security
policy. There was consensus on the issue of Nagorny Karabakh's status,
with both main candidates maintaining that the territory should be
an independent state, separate from Azerbaijan. Having been a leading
military commander in the conflict of 1991-1994, Balasanian's patriotic
credentials were unimpeachable, and he actually took a harder-line
position than his rival: he said that Karabakh should insist on being
represented at the negotiating table and unequivocally rejected the
return of the occupied territories around Karabakh to Azerbaijan
(a central part of the peace deal currently on the table, accepted
by Yerevan).
The differences were over domestic policy, with the discontent of
voters perhaps more directed against the controversial prime minister,
Arayik Harutyunyan, than against the president. The opposition
candidate picked up his strongest support in three rural regions,
Askeran, Martakert and Martuni, where socio-economic problems are
greatest.
The Karabakh election conforms to a curious trend whereby some of the
most competitive elections in the post-Soviet space are in unrecognized
or partially recognized territories.
Separatist Transnistria recently chose as its new leader a young
parliamentarian Yevgeny Shevchuk, who defeated the candidates more
favored by the old guard and by Moscow. Abkhazia has had two fiercely
competitive elections in 2004 and 2011, in which the candidate
positioning himself as the outsider prevailed both times. Even
South Ossetia, whose current population is estimated at no more than
forty thousand and whose budget is 99 percent supported by Russia,
managed to hold a dramatic semifarcical election last year in which
the opposition candidate, Alla Jiyoeva, won. The results of that
ballot were then annulled, but the eventual winner, Leonid Tibilov,
was by local standards a fairly independent candidate who has appointed
Jiyoeva to his cabinet.
What is going on here? If I have an explanation it is that,
paradoxically, because statehood is weaker in these territories,
ordinary members of society are more self-reliant and less susceptible
to pressure. There is more politics from below. But I would use the
word "competitive" advisedly. These are not regular elections. There
is a democratic deficit in part because these territories are not
recognized sovereign states (although this should not disqualify them
from having democratic aspirations.)
More problematic is the issue of the "missing populations," Azerbaijani
and Georgian, that cannot take part in the vote because they were
displaced by war. In the last Soviet census of 1988, 23 percent of
the population of Nagorny Karabakh was Azerbaijani. All of those
people are now refugees inside their own country.
What is a proper international verdict on a poll like such as one?
International observers continue to tie themselves in knots, satisfying
neither the Armenian side ("Why do you ignore us if we hold a good
democratic election?") nor the Azerbaijanis ("Don't give any credence
to a territory that no one, not even Armenia, has recognized as
sovereign.") Freedom House has begun to give democracy ratings to
the breakaway territories but has almost no direct presence on the
ground to make its judgment.
At the very least, there is a political judgment that the citizens
of these lands have a crucial stake in the eventual peace settlements
of the conflicts and that it is desirable for them to have legitimate
leaders who can speak on their behalf.
In March 1992, making plans for a peace conference on the Karabakh
conflict (that has still not been held twenty years on), the then
Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, now the OSCE,
first tried to square this circle by stating that "elected and other
representatives of Nagorno-Karabakh [ie Armenians and Azerbaijanis
respectively] will be invited to the Conference."
The current OSCE mediators did their best to continue this line in
their latest statement, saying "The Co-Chairs acknowledge the need
for the de facto authorities in NK to try to organize democratically
the public life of their population with such a procedure. However,
the Co-Chairs note that none of their three countries, nor any other
country, recognizes Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent and sovereign
state."
Along the same lines, the EU foreign policy chief Baroness Ashton
issued a statement, criticizing the basis for the election but not the
election itself: "I would like to reiterate that the European Union
does not recognise the constitutional and legal framework in which they
will be held. These 'elections' should not prejudice the determination
of the future status of Nagorno-Karabakh in the negotiated general
framework of the peaceful settlement of the conflict."
The rather tortured language of these statements reflects an underlying
discomfort. The longer these protracted post-Soviet conflicts remain
unresolved, these elections pose an international challenge which is
growing, not diminishing.
Thomas de Waal is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace.