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FM AMEMBASSY YEREVAN
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 9151
INFO RUCNCIS/CIS COLLECTIVE
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RUEHLMC/MILLENNIUM CHALLENGE CORPORATION WASHINGTON DC
RUEHAK/AMEMBASSY ANKARA 1794
RUEHIT/AMCONSUL ISTANBUL 0802

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 YEREVAN 000388 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O.12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PREL KDEM KJUS AM
SUBJECT: YEREVAN'S TROUBLED POST-ELECTION WEEK 
 
REFS: A) YEREVAN 382 
B) YEREVAN 372 
 
YEREVAN 00000388  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
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SUMMARY 
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¶1.  (SBU) Allegations of fraud, denials that they had an impact on 
the outcome, arrests, and political maneuvering all marked the 
fracas that followed Yerevan's May 31 mayoral election through 
Friday, June 5.  NGOs and opposition parties cried foul, citing 
massive irregularities during the vote and vote count.  Among the 
fraud allegations, opposition and ruling parties alike focused fire 
on Yerevan's troubled Malatia-Sebastia district, with the Republican 
Party of Armenia seeking to use it as the scapegoat in order to 
minimize the fraud that occurred elsewhere in Yerevan.  While the 
Prosecutor General urged the Central Election Commission (CEC) to 
order vote recounts in eight of Malatia-Sebastia's precincts, its 
Special Investigative Service arrested several individuals allegedly 
involved in the fraud. 
 
¶2. (SBU) Meanwhile, the Republican Party hailed the election as a 
"step forward" overall, citing the statement by a European electoral 
observation mission that the poll was broadly carried out in 
compliance with European standards.  In a surprising move, Levon 
Ter-Petrossian said the opposition Armenian National Congress (ANC) 
had no choice except civil disobedience and called on the Armenian 
Revolutionary Federation- Dashnaktsutiun and other "healthy 
political forces" to join the ANC in seeking the ouster of President 
Sargsian.  Despite the controversy and ANC's appeals to the CEC, the 
CEC on June 7 rejected the protests and certified the results.  Two 
members of the CEC -- those from the opposition Heritage Party and 
the newly-oppositional Dashnaks -- opposed the CEC decision.  The 
CEC's other six members voted in favor.  END SUMMARY. 
 
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PROSECUTOR GENERAL'S RESPONSE TO ELECTORAL FRAUD 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
 
¶3.  (SBU) In acknowledgement of the electoral irregularities that 
occurred in the notorious Malatia-Sebastia district, Prosecutor 
General Aghvan Hovsepian on June 1 urged the CEC to conduct recounts 
in eight of the district's precincts (ref A).  (Note and Comment: 
Although allegations of fraud were made about many of Yerevan's 13 
electoral districts, Malatia-Sebastia earned the reputation of being 
the worst.  The authorities have adopted the line that large-scale 
irregularities were limited to Malatia-Sebastia, with a relatively 
clean election in other districts.  Based on our observations, the 
fraud was widespread throughout Yerevan.  End Note and Comment.) 
 
¶4. (SBU) By June 5, the Special Investigative Service, an 
investigative body subordinated to the Prosecutor General, had 
arrested three individuals for "falsifying vote results."  These 
reportedly included a pro-government member of one of 
Malatia-Sebastia's precinct election commissions, a resident in the 
district, and another election official named Onik Aleksanian. 
(Note:  It is not known whether this official is related to the 
notorious oligarch MP Samvel Aleksanian, aka "Lfik Samo," who has 
been accused of voter intimidation, vote-buying and other 
irregularities during Armenia's recent election.  There were several 
reports that Aleksanian's relatives were actively involved in vote 
fraud on Election Day.  End Note.) 
 
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VOTE RESULT ANNULLED IN 3 PRECINCTS 
----------------------------------- 
 
¶5. (SBU) Electoral authorities in three of Malatia-Sebastia's 
precincts had invalidated the results of their respective vote 
tallies, and had requested prosecutors to launch probes into vote 
fraud.  The CEC subsequently sent the voting materials from the 
three precincts to the Prosecutor-General's office, asking it to 
open a criminal case.  Under Armenian law, the elections in the 
three polling places do not have to be re-run, with the CEC 
confirming that the ballots cast in those places will simply be 
deducted from the overall tally.   According to media reports, the 
invalidation of the three precincts will not have an impact on the 
overall outcome of the vote that the ruling Republican Party of 
Armenia (RPA) won with a convincing margin.  (Comment:  How 
convincing the margin was remains a subject of debate, but in the 
end we will probably never find out.  We suspect that the ruling 
parties -- the RPA and Prosperous Armenia -- likely inflated their 
numbers with ballot-stuffing and other tactics, and probably left 
ANC's count more or less untouched.  End Comment.) 
 
¶6. (SBU) In addition to the probes into the three invalidated 
districts, the Special Investigative Service also launched a 
 
YEREVAN 00000388  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
criminal case based on a June 4 appeal by the opposition Heritage 
party MP Anahit Bakhshian.  Bakhshian's appeal called for an 
investigation of the precinct electoral commission members in 
precincts 9/28, 5/25, 8/06, 9/20 and 10/20 polling stations, as well 
as personnel in the Territorial Electoral Commission (TEC) at TEC 5. 
 According to Bakhshian, election officials in these places 
obstructed political party proxies and election observers, and 
engaged in electoral fraud. 
 
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CEC REJECTS PLEAS TO INVALIDATE TECS 7 AND 8 
-------------------------------------------- 
 
¶7. (SBU) With the Armenian National Congress continuing to call the 
mayoral election "illegal," citing a litany of electoral abuses, the 
ANC filed complaints on June 1 seeking the invalidation of the 
election results of both TECs 7 and 8.  (Note:  These TECs comprise 
the districts of Malatia-Sebastia, Ajapnyak and Shengavit, where 
suspiciously high turnout was recorded.  End Note.)  The collective 
voter turnout at TECs 7 and 8 amounted to twenty percent of the 
total votes cast in all of Yerevan on Election Day.  In protest of 
the fraud, the ANC on June 1 decided to boycott the 13 seats on 
Yerevan's new city council that it had earned in the election (ref 
A). 
 
¶8. (SBU) On June 7 the CEC, as expected, rejected the ANC appeal in 
TECs 7 and 8 and certified the final results of the election and 
recounts.  Six members of the CEC supported the CEC decision, with 
two members -- one from the opposition Heritage Party, and the other 
from the newly-oppositional Dashnaks -- opposed.   The ANC can now 
file a further appeal with the CEC or turn directly to Armenia's 
Administrative Court.  ANC representatives have told Emboffs that 
they plan to appeal directly to the Administrative Court.  If that 
fails, they will lodge an appeal with the United Nations authority 
that considers disputes related to local elections. (Note:  In 
Armenia's national elections, the normal recourse after a first 
instance court is the appeals court and then the Constitutional 
Court.  But according to Armenian law, no such legal recourse exists 
for local government elections, thus the ANC's decision to press 
their case at the UN.  End Note.) 
 
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WHILE RULING PARTY DOWNPLAYS IMPACT OF FRAUD 
-------------------------------------------- 
 
¶9.  (SBU) As the ANC raised questions about the vote in the days 
following the election, President Sargsian and his ruling Republican 
Party of Armenia (RPA) downplayed reports of fraud and abuse as 
exceptions to an otherwise "well-run" election.  Although RPA 
spokesman Edward Sharmazanov did not deny that there were violations 
on Election Day, he said that they did not have an impact on the 
results of the election.  According to Sharmazanov, the election 
complied with European standards.  He said that "we can evaluate 
them as a step forward, and that is how the European observers 
evaluated them."  In response to a correspondent from the 
independent A1Plus online news service, Sharmazanov said it was 
natural that the RPA had done well, stating that "the majority of 
Armenians trust the Republican Party, and proof of that are the 
presidential elections, the parliamentary elections and [now] the 
Yerevan mayoral elections." 
 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
POLITICAL MANEUVERING BY ANC IN CALL TO DASHNAKS 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
 
¶10. (SBU) On June 3, the ANC led by ex-President Levon 
Ter-Petrossian (LTP) called upon the Armenian Revolutionary 
Federation - Dashnaktsutiun (Dashnaks) and other "healthy political 
forces" to join its struggle against Armenia's ruling authorities. 
(Note and Comment:  The offer was remarkable, given the animosity 
between the Dashnaks and LTP, who jailed some of the top Dashnak 
leaders in 1994 when he was president. The Dashnaks also formed part 
of the ruling coalition from 2003-2009.  End Note and Comment.)  The 
Dashnaks have yet to comment on the ANC offer, but two of its top 
leaders on June 2 backed the ANC's decision not to take up its newly 
won seats in the city council.  The Dashnaks tallied a paltry 4.65 
percent of the vote on May 31. 
 
¶11. (SBU) In its call to the Dashnaks, the ANC said it is "calling 
on all of the country's democratic political forces to close ranks 
in this fight for the establishment of democracy."  Levon Zurabian, 
ANC's coordinator, said the fraud in the election was essentially a 
message from President Sargsian to Armenians that their government 
can be changed only by force.  "We are thinking over that message," 
he said, adding that the ANC could launch a campaign of nationwide 
"civil disobedience."  Another senior ANC figure, Vahagn 
Khachatrian, ruled out any "forcible methods" of political struggle, 
 
YEREVAN 00000388  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
however, stating that "we will never allow a civil war in the 
country." 
 
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COMMENT 
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¶12. (SBU) Armenia's post-election periods tend to be characterized 
by allegations of fraud, official denials, and political posturing. 
The Yerevan election has been no different.  The authorities are 
trying to convince the public - and the international community -- 
that irregularities were concentrated in Malatia-Sebastiaas a way of 
deflecting attention from the more widespread electoral fraud that 
permeated most of Yerevan on Election Day, albeit in less flagrant 
forms.  By launching criminal cases against a few individuals, and 
overturning results in several voting precincts, the authorities 
hope to blunt the criticism leveled against the vote  -- and 
ultimately against them.  Such a piecemeal approach that fails to 
address the larger, more systemic issues will do little to address 
Armenians' voters' distrust in their electoral processes. 
 
YOVANOVITCH