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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 YEREVAN 000140 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR EUR/CARC 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/14/2018 
TAGS: PROG PREL KDEM AM
SUBJECT: BITTER LEMONS: ELECTION TENSION TURNS FUNERAL 
GATHERING INTO SHOUTING MATCH 
 
 
Classified By: CDA JOSEPH PENNINGTON, REASONS 1.4 B/D. 
 
 
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SUMMARY 
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¶1. (C) During a pre-election regional reporting trip to the 
northwestern city of Stepanavan, PolOff uncomfortably watched 
a funeral gathering degenerate into a tense shouting match 
between friends and family when discussion turned to 
Armenia's approaching February 19 presidential election. 
Forgetting for a moment that their 80-year-old father had 
been buried the day before, family members and close friends 
angrily accused each other and their preferred presidential 
candidates of being liars.  The shouting match, which ended 
tensely with people breaking up early to go home, revealed 
the depth of the divisions and tensions that the presidential 
race has created within Armenian families, even in the 
remotest corners of the country.  END SUMMARY. 
 
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FORMER PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEER PAYS HIS RESPECTS 
--------------------------------------------- - 
 
¶2. (U) On February 13, PolOff traveled to the northwestern 
city of Stepanavan -- where he served as a Peace Corps 
volunteer in 1992-94 -- to gauge the pre-election atmosphere. 
 With a current population of 18,000, Stepanavan is also a 
hub city for the surrounding 20 villages that boast a 
collective population of 17,000.  Known for its scenic 
mountain vistas and status as a former health tourism 
destination for Soviet citizens, Stepanavan nowadays is an 
agricultural center and major stop along one of the two 
principal transportation routes that connect Armenia with 
Georgia.  It is also known to be a quiet, sleepy city where 
people are usually more preoccupied with their crops and 
harvests than anything else. 
 
¶3. (C) Upon his evening arrival, he phoned old friends to see 
if he could pay them an informal visit, and subsequently was 
informed that their 80-year-old father had just died of a 
stroke and been buried the day before.  Putting aside their 
grief, which had been compounded by the loss of their 
80-year-old mother six months before, they invited PolOff to 
a small post-funeral commemoration they were holding for 
family and close friends. 
 
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EVENING TURNS UGLY WITH ELECTION TALK 
------------------------------------- 
 
¶4. (C) The gathering of nine friends and family, all between 
50-70 years of age, included the middle-aged daughter and son 
of the deceased.  Also present were the siblings' spouses, a 
68-year-old sister of the deceased, and four close friends of 
the family.  The latter included three women who were 
teachers and a 70-year-old female neighbor on pension.  After 
a half hour of somber embraces and exchange of condolences, 
the discussion turned to the topic of Armenia's presidential 
election when PolOff tried to delicately raise the subject. 
 
¶5. (C) The sparks began to fly at this point, when one of the 
teachers called the ruling authorities and the presidential 
campaign of front-runner Serzh Sargsian "liars," pledging her 
support to ex-president Levon Ter-Petrossian.  She told 
PolOff that people in Stepanavan are "scared" to say who they 
will vote for.  The son of the deceased, a colonel in the 
Armenian army who has worked at the Stepanavan army base for 
the last 25 years, became enraged at this comment, and 
blasted the teacher for supporting a "crook." 
 
¶6. (C) A Republican Party member, with his wife sitting at 
his side, the son (colonel) unleashed a vitriolic attack on 
the LTP era and his supporters, accusing the first president 
of selling off state assets and shutting down Armenian 
industry while people "huddled" in their sub-freezing homes. 
He enumerated various national industrial enterprises LTP had 
allegedly sold off to party cronies in the nineties, who the 
colonel then charged had pocketed the profits.  Citing a TV 
report he had just seen on TV, the colonel called it an 
ouright lie that LTP had gone to Moscow to shore up Russian 
support the day before, which he said was nothing but another 
"campaign ploy" designed to deceive voters. 
 
¶7. (C) Requesting PolOff not disclose the information, 
 
YEREVAN 00000140  002 OF 003 
 
 
another teacher chimed in that she and other teachers were 
being pressured to vote for Sargsian by the director of the 
agricultural college where she worked.  (NOTE:  The same 
director told PolOff in a meeting the following afternoon 
that the Minister of Agriculture, a member of the Armenian 
Revolutionary Federation ) Dashnaktsutyun, had given 
instructions to all Ministry employees, including 
agricultural college directors, to vote for the Dashnak 
presidential candidate Vahan Hovannisian.  On his tour of the 
premises, however, PolOff spotted significant political 
propaganda for Serzh Sargsian scattered throughout the new 
teachers' quarters that the director proudly showed him. 
Poloff had taught English at the college fifteen years ago. 
However, the USDA attache separately learned that Armenia's 
Chief Veterinary Officer, with the MinAg, had directed his 
entire organization to campaign and vote for the Republican 
candidate.  END NOTE.) 
 
--------------------------------------- 
SERZH DELIVERS STABILITY, LTP ONLY LIES 
--------------------------------------- 
 
¶8. (C) Both teachers, and the retired pensioner, yelled at 
the army colonel, saying he was being hoodwinked by the 
authorities, and urged him to "open his eyes."  The pensioner 
said she didn't trust anybody, that all Armenian leaders are 
crooks and liars who steal from the people, and as a result 
intended to boycott the vote. She scoffed at the recent 60 
percent increase in pensions, which she herself benefited 
from, and said it was an election ploy.  "We usually get 
increases of only 2000 drams (approx USD 6.65) per year," she 
said, wondering out loud why they decided to raise it so high 
immediately before the start of the election season.  One of 
the teachers alleged that her Yerevan-employed husband, an 
LTP supporter, had come to Stepanavan the day before only to 
discover that three additional names had been listed at their 
registered voting address.  She said this proved that the 
authorities intended to falsify the vote. 
 
¶9. (C) The army colonel brushed off the allegations as 
"campaign provocations," and declared that Sargsian had so 
much support that he didn't need to stoop to such tactics. 
He then went on the attack again, saying how his father in 
the days before his death had lamented to him how his 
grandsons' Russian-language education had been "stunted" by 
LTP.  Apparently LTP, in his early days of his first 
administration, had ordered the Education Ministry to give 
priority to Armenian-language curricula at the expense of 
Russian curricula.  The dying man told his son he had been 
shocked when his second grandson could not read Russian after 
graduating from secondary school several years before. 
(NOTE:  Both grandsons are officers in the Armenian army; one 
is stationed at the Stepanavan base and the other is 
currently eight months into his service in Nagorno-Karabakh. 
END NOTE.) 
 
¶10. (C) Both spouses (a woman and a man) of the children of 
the deceased, one of whom was a registered Republican (the 
woman), said they were voting for Serzh because only he out 
of the nine candidates in the field could provide Armenian 
with stability.  The man said LTP had "lied" to Stepanavan 
before, and had already "had his chance."  When asked why 
Armenians linked economic growth with Serzh Sargsian, who has 
always held security portfolios, the army colonel proudly 
boasted that "Serzh gave us the stability" necessary to grow. 
 He also emphasized that wherever Serzh had worked in the 
government, he had always succeeded in increasing the 
salaries of his employees. 
 
¶11.  (C) The daughter of the deceased looked to be at a loss 
for words in the heated political discussion.  She sheepishly 
looked at PolOff, then her female friends, and plaintively 
suggested, "Ladies, why don't we vote for Artur 
Baghdassarian, he appears to be an honest person."  Her 
brother, the colonel, immediately dismissed the 39-year-old 
leader of the Orinats Yerkir (Rule of Law) party as a 
silver-tongued opportunist who could not be trusted with the 
reigns of the country. 
 
¶12. (C) The teachers then tried to tell PolOff -- below the 
shouting of the colonel -- that Armenians were being 
"brainwashed" by public television, which they said was 
"nothing but a mouthpiece" for the ruling authorities.  One 
said she was sure that the recent fire that had gutted two 
floors at the Ministry of Justice in Yerevan, including one 
of the Ministry's archives, was politically motivated to 
 
YEREVAN 00000140  003 OF 003 
 
 
ensure a cover-up of material on file that was embarrassing 
to the authorities. 
 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
GATHERING BREAKS UP EARLY, LEAVING BITTER TASTE 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
 
¶13. (C) After an hour of heated discussion, shouting, and 
interruptions, the daughter of the deceased suggested they 
conclude the evening and go home.  The teachers continued to 
fume about the corruption of the authorities even as they 
were putting on their winter jackets and attire for the cold 
night outside.  The colonel shrugged off everything they had 
to say, and went outside to heat up his car.  The reason for 
the gathering, to commemorate the death of a loved one, 
appeared to vanish into the night, leaving friends and family 
with bitter feelings. 
 
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COMMENT 
------- 
 
¶14. (C) PolOff was taken aback by two things during the 
evening.  First, that people he had previously known to be 
politically passive had become visibly politicized by the 
presidential election.  Second, that the increasingly 
acrimonious presidential race has created equally bitter 
divisions in Armenian families, who for the most part 
normally don't wear politics on their sleeves.  But as the 
evening showed, this is no ordinary presidential election, as 
people here appear to view it as a decisive turning point for 
Armenia. 
PENNINGTON