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EURASIANET: ARMENIA: POLITICAL SHOOTING COULD DELAY PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
February 1, 2013 - 11:47am, by Gayane Abrahamyan
The shooting in Armenia of opposition presidential candidate Paruyr
Hayrikian is raising the possibility that the election, scheduled for
February 18, could be postponed.
According to preliminary police reports, 63-year-old Hayrikian, a
former Soviet dissident and the leader of the tiny National
Self-Determination Union, was shot once through the collarbone late
January 31 near his house in Yerevan. He was reportedly in stable
condition at St. Gregory the Illuminator Hospital. A hospital
representative told EurasiaNet.org that the candidate's vital organs
escaped harm by "a miracle." The motive for the shooting was not
immediately clear.
No arrests in connection with the incident had been made as of late
February 1, but authorities revealed they had recovered evidence,
including a shell casing, from the crime scene. Based on a preliminary
ballistics investigation, a police report, , estimates that the
assailant shot at Hayrikian twice from close range, as near as
30-to-40 centimeters (about 12 to 16 inches).
Artur Baghdasarian, secretary of the National Security Council, said
at a February 1 news conference that President Serzh Sargsyan had
ordered the National Security Service, Armenia's senior investigative
department, to prioritize the case. "Our law-enforcement bodies will
do their best to find the culprits and punish them because this is a
mean and treacherous blow during an election period," Baghdasarian
said in comments broadcast on Armenian Public Television.
The case is being investigated as an assassination attempt against a
state, political or public figure intended to disrupt the elections,
Baghdasarian said. The charge carries a prison sentence ranging from
12-to-20 years to life behind bars.
What had been a quiet election campaign to date essentially ground to
a halt as news of the shooting spread. The six other presidential
challenges, along with the incumbent seeking re-election, cancelled
public appearances. Whether that campaign suspension proves prolonged
could depend on the Constitutional Court and Hayrikian himself.
Under Article 52 of Armenia's constitution, a presidential election
can be postponed for two weeks "[s]hould one of the presidential
candidates face insurmountable obstacles." If the candidate in
question does not recover sufficiently during that period of time to
continue his or her campaign, the vote would take place 40 days after
"the expiration of the two-week period."
For a delay to occur, "the candidate or his/her trustee should apply
to the Constitutional Court and submit the facts about the
'insurmountable obstacles,' after which the Court will decide whether
they are insurmountable or not," explained constitutional law expert
Vardan Ayvazian.
Hayrikian's campaign representatives announced that a decision would
be made February 4 on whether or not to petition the court to delay
the election. According to some news reports, Hayrikian told President
Sargsyan that he was inclined to seek a two-week delay.
Political analysts say the incident will impact Armenia's otherwise
peaceful presidential campaign, but they are reluctant to predict
precisely how. One of seven opposition candidates to President
Sargsyan, the odds-on favorite, Hayrikian has garnered well under 5
percent support in opinion polls.
This is not, however, the first attack against Hayrikian, who has,
according to campaign staff, encountered six such attempts in the
past, including three attempted shootings in 1991 inside the state
radio company.
Autos figured in the other three reported attempts. In 1992, he
asserted that someone sabotaged his car tires in an attempt to induce
a fatal accident while driving on a mountainous road heading into the
disputed Nagorno-Karbakh territory. In 1995, he survived an attempted
drive-by shooting near his house. And, finally, in 1996, he discovered
"a huge, poisonous snake" in his car while driving to Artashat, a town
in southeastern Armenia.
Foreign-relations coordinator Karo Yeghnukian attributed Hayrikian's
survival of these reported incidents to "fate" and "a miracle."
Hayrikian's daughter, Nare Hayrikian, said her father's in-depth
involvement with Armenia's independence movement during the Soviet era
(he spent six years in exile in Siberia) motivated the attacks against
him in the 1990s. "He knows too much," she said.
By contrast, Yeghnukian is convinced that this latest shooting was
motivated by Hayrikian's candidate status alone. "Such a frivolous
attempt is usually implemented or ordered by weighty powers," he
conjectured. "This is not accidental and, for sure, not personal."
Some in Armenia have expressed skepticism about the incident,
suggesting on social media networks, including Facebook, that it was,
in essence, a publicity stunt designed to boost Hayrikian's chances at
the polls. Former Interior Minister Suren Abrahamian dismissed such
speculation, reasoning that if it had been a set-up, the shooter
"wouldn't have shot in such a vital area," where a bullet "might have
damaged his lungs, heart."
The most immediate result of the shooting, opined one analyst, could
the influence it has on voters, who still remember the violence that
left 10 people dead in clashes between police and opposition
protesters after Armenia's 2008 presidential election. "This is aimed
against society, to create and deepen the atmosphere of fear,"
commented Edgar Vardanian of the Armenian Center for National and
International Studies.
Editor's note:
Gayane Abrahamyan is a reporter for ArmeniaNow.com in Yerevan.
http://www.eurasianet.org/node/66494
February 1, 2013 - 11:47am, by Gayane Abrahamyan
The shooting in Armenia of opposition presidential candidate Paruyr
Hayrikian is raising the possibility that the election, scheduled for
February 18, could be postponed.
According to preliminary police reports, 63-year-old Hayrikian, a
former Soviet dissident and the leader of the tiny National
Self-Determination Union, was shot once through the collarbone late
January 31 near his house in Yerevan. He was reportedly in stable
condition at St. Gregory the Illuminator Hospital. A hospital
representative told EurasiaNet.org that the candidate's vital organs
escaped harm by "a miracle." The motive for the shooting was not
immediately clear.
No arrests in connection with the incident had been made as of late
February 1, but authorities revealed they had recovered evidence,
including a shell casing, from the crime scene. Based on a preliminary
ballistics investigation, a police report, , estimates that the
assailant shot at Hayrikian twice from close range, as near as
30-to-40 centimeters (about 12 to 16 inches).
Artur Baghdasarian, secretary of the National Security Council, said
at a February 1 news conference that President Serzh Sargsyan had
ordered the National Security Service, Armenia's senior investigative
department, to prioritize the case. "Our law-enforcement bodies will
do their best to find the culprits and punish them because this is a
mean and treacherous blow during an election period," Baghdasarian
said in comments broadcast on Armenian Public Television.
The case is being investigated as an assassination attempt against a
state, political or public figure intended to disrupt the elections,
Baghdasarian said. The charge carries a prison sentence ranging from
12-to-20 years to life behind bars.
What had been a quiet election campaign to date essentially ground to
a halt as news of the shooting spread. The six other presidential
challenges, along with the incumbent seeking re-election, cancelled
public appearances. Whether that campaign suspension proves prolonged
could depend on the Constitutional Court and Hayrikian himself.
Under Article 52 of Armenia's constitution, a presidential election
can be postponed for two weeks "[s]hould one of the presidential
candidates face insurmountable obstacles." If the candidate in
question does not recover sufficiently during that period of time to
continue his or her campaign, the vote would take place 40 days after
"the expiration of the two-week period."
For a delay to occur, "the candidate or his/her trustee should apply
to the Constitutional Court and submit the facts about the
'insurmountable obstacles,' after which the Court will decide whether
they are insurmountable or not," explained constitutional law expert
Vardan Ayvazian.
Hayrikian's campaign representatives announced that a decision would
be made February 4 on whether or not to petition the court to delay
the election. According to some news reports, Hayrikian told President
Sargsyan that he was inclined to seek a two-week delay.
Political analysts say the incident will impact Armenia's otherwise
peaceful presidential campaign, but they are reluctant to predict
precisely how. One of seven opposition candidates to President
Sargsyan, the odds-on favorite, Hayrikian has garnered well under 5
percent support in opinion polls.
This is not, however, the first attack against Hayrikian, who has,
according to campaign staff, encountered six such attempts in the
past, including three attempted shootings in 1991 inside the state
radio company.
Autos figured in the other three reported attempts. In 1992, he
asserted that someone sabotaged his car tires in an attempt to induce
a fatal accident while driving on a mountainous road heading into the
disputed Nagorno-Karbakh territory. In 1995, he survived an attempted
drive-by shooting near his house. And, finally, in 1996, he discovered
"a huge, poisonous snake" in his car while driving to Artashat, a town
in southeastern Armenia.
Foreign-relations coordinator Karo Yeghnukian attributed Hayrikian's
survival of these reported incidents to "fate" and "a miracle."
Hayrikian's daughter, Nare Hayrikian, said her father's in-depth
involvement with Armenia's independence movement during the Soviet era
(he spent six years in exile in Siberia) motivated the attacks against
him in the 1990s. "He knows too much," she said.
By contrast, Yeghnukian is convinced that this latest shooting was
motivated by Hayrikian's candidate status alone. "Such a frivolous
attempt is usually implemented or ordered by weighty powers," he
conjectured. "This is not accidental and, for sure, not personal."
Some in Armenia have expressed skepticism about the incident,
suggesting on social media networks, including Facebook, that it was,
in essence, a publicity stunt designed to boost Hayrikian's chances at
the polls. Former Interior Minister Suren Abrahamian dismissed such
speculation, reasoning that if it had been a set-up, the shooter
"wouldn't have shot in such a vital area," where a bullet "might have
damaged his lungs, heart."
The most immediate result of the shooting, opined one analyst, could
the influence it has on voters, who still remember the violence that
left 10 people dead in clashes between police and opposition
protesters after Armenia's 2008 presidential election. "This is aimed
against society, to create and deepen the atmosphere of fear,"
commented Edgar Vardanian of the Armenian Center for National and
International Studies.
Editor's note:
Gayane Abrahamyan is a reporter for ArmeniaNow.com in Yerevan.
http://www.eurasianet.org/node/66494