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LAST OF THE MOHICANS: ARMENIA'S PRESIDENT SERZH SARGSYAN
European Voice
March 14 2013
By Jennifer Rankin - Today, 04:15 CET
Barring accidents or upsets, Serzh Sargsyan will be sworn in as
Armenia's president for a second term on 9 April. If the ceremony
follows past form, the career politician will place his hand over a
copy of Armenia's 18-year-old constitution and a 1,400-year-old bible
to take the oath of office that will see him in power until 2018.
The rituals evoke solidity, but awkward questions about Sargsyan's
victory linger. Raffi Hovannisian, Sargsyan's main rival, has been
drawing crowds of thousands as he tours the country insisting that he
was the real winner of February's contest. According to the official
count, Sargsyan won 59% of the vote, compared to Hovannisian's 37%.
Local vote-monitors, such as Transparency International, say they have
evidence of ballot-box stuffing. International observers concluded
that the election was an improvement on its predecessors, but still
fell short of being truly competitive. Some of Sargsyan's rivals
decided not to stand, arguing that the contest was skewed in the
president's favour.
The final report from the international election mission, also due
in April, is expected to make uncomfortable reading for the president.
Nonetheless, this is a less troubled start than the early days of
Sargsyan's first term. On 1 March 2008, ten people were killed and
scores injured during protests over alleged electoral fraud. Robert
Kocharian, the outgoing president and Sargsyan's old friend, declared
a three-week state of emergency, and the parliament passed a law
curbing public meetings.
"The last five years were years of rehabilitation. This time he
has the chance to start on blank paper," says Haykak Arshamyan,
a historian and civic activist in Yerevan.
Yet Sargsyan, 58, faces huge challenges in modernising this poor,
landlocked country where more than one-third of the population live
below the poverty line, and economic development is choked because
only two of its four borders - with Georgia and Iran - are open. The
borders with Turkey and Azerbaijan are closed.
"Many people are simply disappointed with his economic policies,"
says Varuzhan Hoktanyan, an elections expert who leads Transparency
International's Armenia office. "You have very serious discontent
- 250,000 people [from a population of 3.1 million] have left the
country during Serzh Sargsyan's presidency."
"Even people who voted for him are saying that the country needs
serious reform and that the country hasn't done that well," says Liana
Sayadyan, deputy editor of Hetq newspaper. Sargsyan's awkward manner,
clearly on view during unscripted moments on the campaign trail,
made him even less popular, says Sayadyan. "During the elections
local people asked questions and he answered without pleasure...so
voters were disappointed."
Sargsyan may be a typical post-Soviet politician, an uncharismatic
pragmatist devoid of any ideology. He is better known for his
fondness for chess - he is chairman of the national federation of
this chess-loving country - than for any moves inspired by political
conviction. His party, the Republican Party of Armenia, is neither
liberal, left nor right, Sayadyan says, but follows what it defines
as the "national interest".
For Sargsyan, the national interest means good relations with Russia
and the European Union. The national interest also prompted a bold
initiative to unfreeze relations with Turkey: the so-called "football
diplomacy" of 2008-09 was praised even by Sargsyan's domestic critics,
although it stalled when Turkey's leadership failed to ratify the
necessary protocols.
Sargsyan was born in the Soviet Union, in Stepanakert, the silk-weaving
capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan where
conflict still smoulders 20 years after the two countries went to
war over the territory. Unusually for a Karabakhi, Sargsyan studied
in Yerevan, but returned to his native region to become leader of
the local Komsomol, the Soviet youth group, after a brief career as
a metalworker.
When the Nagorno-Karabakh war broke out in 1992, Sargsyan found himself
in charge of supplies and logistics. This job did not shield him from
the conflict's terrible toll. "I lost nearly all my friends.
I lost my 18-year-old nephew," he recalled in a 2000 interview.
Nevertheless, although Sargsyan speaks Azeri and grew up with
Azerbaijani friends, he insisted that Armenia would be ready to fight
again if necessary.
Armenia's eventual victory in 1994 cemented the position of the
Nagorno-Karabakh faction in the country's political life, and
the dominant personalities were Sargsyan and his one-time protege,
Kocharian, whom he had appointed as his Komsomol deputy - and who later
became Armenia's second president. Kocharian came to power in 1997,
when his rival in presidential elections was forced to stand down
amid accusations of defeatism over Nagorno-Karabakh. "We were very
close friends. There was hardly a week when we didn't go hunting or
fishing," Sargsyan recalled in 2000.
It was widely expected that Sargsyan, who served under Kocharian
as defence minister and prime minister, would take over from his
former fishing buddy. But when he did, it was marked by an increasing
divergence of approach from the Russia-leaning, "tough guy" attitude
of his friend, according to Thomas de Waal, a senior associate at
the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "Sargsyan meets the
opposition, he tries to have a more balanced foreign policy, he made
gestures to NATO, he gave Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili a
medal in 2009 - that was a deliberate signal to Russia, 'we are not
your prize'," says de Waal. "He is more of a pragmatist than you
might guess."
"The good thing about Sargsyan is that he can listen to people. He is
not a very tough leader," says Arshamyan, citing Sargsyan's decision
to release political prisoners jailed after the 1 March 2008 protests.
Analysts expect that Sargsyan will have to talk to the opposition to
make headway in his second term, to boost what is seen as his limited
ability to respond to an increasingly dissatisfied public. "If you
compare the Armenia of 2008 to the Armenia of 2013, the media is so
much freer. There are more young people in the government. [Sargsyan]
is becoming year by year a more controversial figure," argues
Arshamyan.
Time may be running out for the Nagorno-Karabakh clan. "He is the last
of the Mohicans, the last vestige of the Nagorno-Karabakh elite,"
says Richard Giragosian, director of the Regional Studies Center in
Yerevan. "The nationalist element of politics no longer resonates with
voters." Nor is Sargsyan likely to be the man to open up this closed
government, he adds. "He is playing chess too slowly; he needs to be
much bolder in his moves," says Giragosian.
Jennifer Rankin
1954: Born Stepanakert
1972-74: Served in the USSR armed forces
1979: Graduated from Yerevan State University
1979-88: Head of division, Stepanakert City Communist Party Youth
Association
1989-93: Head of Nagorno-Karabakh Republic Self Defence Forces
Committee
1990: Elected as a deputy to the Supreme Council of Armenia
1993-95: Defence minister
1996-99: Minister of interior and national security
1999-2007: Secretary of the Republic of Armenia Security Council
2000-07: Defence minister
2007-08: Prime minister
2008-: President of Armenia
http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/imported/last-of-the-mohicans/76656.aspx
From: A. Papazian
European Voice
March 14 2013
By Jennifer Rankin - Today, 04:15 CET
Barring accidents or upsets, Serzh Sargsyan will be sworn in as
Armenia's president for a second term on 9 April. If the ceremony
follows past form, the career politician will place his hand over a
copy of Armenia's 18-year-old constitution and a 1,400-year-old bible
to take the oath of office that will see him in power until 2018.
The rituals evoke solidity, but awkward questions about Sargsyan's
victory linger. Raffi Hovannisian, Sargsyan's main rival, has been
drawing crowds of thousands as he tours the country insisting that he
was the real winner of February's contest. According to the official
count, Sargsyan won 59% of the vote, compared to Hovannisian's 37%.
Local vote-monitors, such as Transparency International, say they have
evidence of ballot-box stuffing. International observers concluded
that the election was an improvement on its predecessors, but still
fell short of being truly competitive. Some of Sargsyan's rivals
decided not to stand, arguing that the contest was skewed in the
president's favour.
The final report from the international election mission, also due
in April, is expected to make uncomfortable reading for the president.
Nonetheless, this is a less troubled start than the early days of
Sargsyan's first term. On 1 March 2008, ten people were killed and
scores injured during protests over alleged electoral fraud. Robert
Kocharian, the outgoing president and Sargsyan's old friend, declared
a three-week state of emergency, and the parliament passed a law
curbing public meetings.
"The last five years were years of rehabilitation. This time he
has the chance to start on blank paper," says Haykak Arshamyan,
a historian and civic activist in Yerevan.
Yet Sargsyan, 58, faces huge challenges in modernising this poor,
landlocked country where more than one-third of the population live
below the poverty line, and economic development is choked because
only two of its four borders - with Georgia and Iran - are open. The
borders with Turkey and Azerbaijan are closed.
"Many people are simply disappointed with his economic policies,"
says Varuzhan Hoktanyan, an elections expert who leads Transparency
International's Armenia office. "You have very serious discontent
- 250,000 people [from a population of 3.1 million] have left the
country during Serzh Sargsyan's presidency."
"Even people who voted for him are saying that the country needs
serious reform and that the country hasn't done that well," says Liana
Sayadyan, deputy editor of Hetq newspaper. Sargsyan's awkward manner,
clearly on view during unscripted moments on the campaign trail,
made him even less popular, says Sayadyan. "During the elections
local people asked questions and he answered without pleasure...so
voters were disappointed."
Sargsyan may be a typical post-Soviet politician, an uncharismatic
pragmatist devoid of any ideology. He is better known for his
fondness for chess - he is chairman of the national federation of
this chess-loving country - than for any moves inspired by political
conviction. His party, the Republican Party of Armenia, is neither
liberal, left nor right, Sayadyan says, but follows what it defines
as the "national interest".
For Sargsyan, the national interest means good relations with Russia
and the European Union. The national interest also prompted a bold
initiative to unfreeze relations with Turkey: the so-called "football
diplomacy" of 2008-09 was praised even by Sargsyan's domestic critics,
although it stalled when Turkey's leadership failed to ratify the
necessary protocols.
Sargsyan was born in the Soviet Union, in Stepanakert, the silk-weaving
capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan where
conflict still smoulders 20 years after the two countries went to
war over the territory. Unusually for a Karabakhi, Sargsyan studied
in Yerevan, but returned to his native region to become leader of
the local Komsomol, the Soviet youth group, after a brief career as
a metalworker.
When the Nagorno-Karabakh war broke out in 1992, Sargsyan found himself
in charge of supplies and logistics. This job did not shield him from
the conflict's terrible toll. "I lost nearly all my friends.
I lost my 18-year-old nephew," he recalled in a 2000 interview.
Nevertheless, although Sargsyan speaks Azeri and grew up with
Azerbaijani friends, he insisted that Armenia would be ready to fight
again if necessary.
Armenia's eventual victory in 1994 cemented the position of the
Nagorno-Karabakh faction in the country's political life, and
the dominant personalities were Sargsyan and his one-time protege,
Kocharian, whom he had appointed as his Komsomol deputy - and who later
became Armenia's second president. Kocharian came to power in 1997,
when his rival in presidential elections was forced to stand down
amid accusations of defeatism over Nagorno-Karabakh. "We were very
close friends. There was hardly a week when we didn't go hunting or
fishing," Sargsyan recalled in 2000.
It was widely expected that Sargsyan, who served under Kocharian
as defence minister and prime minister, would take over from his
former fishing buddy. But when he did, it was marked by an increasing
divergence of approach from the Russia-leaning, "tough guy" attitude
of his friend, according to Thomas de Waal, a senior associate at
the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "Sargsyan meets the
opposition, he tries to have a more balanced foreign policy, he made
gestures to NATO, he gave Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili a
medal in 2009 - that was a deliberate signal to Russia, 'we are not
your prize'," says de Waal. "He is more of a pragmatist than you
might guess."
"The good thing about Sargsyan is that he can listen to people. He is
not a very tough leader," says Arshamyan, citing Sargsyan's decision
to release political prisoners jailed after the 1 March 2008 protests.
Analysts expect that Sargsyan will have to talk to the opposition to
make headway in his second term, to boost what is seen as his limited
ability to respond to an increasingly dissatisfied public. "If you
compare the Armenia of 2008 to the Armenia of 2013, the media is so
much freer. There are more young people in the government. [Sargsyan]
is becoming year by year a more controversial figure," argues
Arshamyan.
Time may be running out for the Nagorno-Karabakh clan. "He is the last
of the Mohicans, the last vestige of the Nagorno-Karabakh elite,"
says Richard Giragosian, director of the Regional Studies Center in
Yerevan. "The nationalist element of politics no longer resonates with
voters." Nor is Sargsyan likely to be the man to open up this closed
government, he adds. "He is playing chess too slowly; he needs to be
much bolder in his moves," says Giragosian.
Jennifer Rankin
1954: Born Stepanakert
1972-74: Served in the USSR armed forces
1979: Graduated from Yerevan State University
1979-88: Head of division, Stepanakert City Communist Party Youth
Association
1989-93: Head of Nagorno-Karabakh Republic Self Defence Forces
Committee
1990: Elected as a deputy to the Supreme Council of Armenia
1993-95: Defence minister
1996-99: Minister of interior and national security
1999-2007: Secretary of the Republic of Armenia Security Council
2000-07: Defence minister
2007-08: Prime minister
2008-: President of Armenia
http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/imported/last-of-the-mohicans/76656.aspx
From: A. Papazian