Tag Archives: armenia

Azerbaijan reelects Aliyev in doubtful presidential vote

For a country whose voting hijinks extend even to the Eurovision song contest, it should come as no surprise that Azerbaijan has something less than the best democratic pedigree. azerbaijan

Since the end of the Soviet Union, the Aliyev family has held an iron grip on Azerbaijan’s presidency — and that has not changed today, with the news that Ilham Aliyev won reelection in today’s presidential ‘election,’ less a free vote than an exercise in box-checking for a decidedly undemocratic regime.

Azerbaijani officials apparently even released election results before the voters were even counted.  Classic you, Azerbaijan!

With around 84% of the vote according to initial reports, Aliyev is down from the 87.3% he won in the prior 2008 presidential race (his nearest opponent won just 2.8% five years ago).  That’s despite the fact that a long-fractured Azerbaijani opposition united for the first time in today’s election behind the candidacy of historian Jamil Hasanli, who has won between just 8% and 10% of the vote today, according to initial reports.

First, a little background.  What is Azerbaijan and why should you care?

Caucasus_Map

It’s a former Soviet republic in the Caucasus, and it’s strategically nestled south of Russia, north of Iran and near Turkey.  Oil wealth means that GDP per capita (over $7,000) is double that in neighboring Armenia and Georgia, but also that Aliyev holds a strong grip on the levers of power.

It’s fairly important because it’s a huge supplier of natural gas and oil to European markets through Georgia and Turkey, thereby bypassing Russia.  It’s also the key to any future Caspian Sea gas pipeline, because that pipeline would almost certainly run from Turkmenistan through the Caspian Sea to Baku, the Azerbaijani capital, and the through Armenia, Georgia or Russia to Turkey and then to Europe.  Its oil and its location mean that it hasn’t been subject to the same kind of Western scolding as some other countries.

Aliyev (pictured above) took power in 2003, succeeding his father, and he arranged for the constitution’s amendment to allow for a third term in office (and doubtless, he’ll find a way to a fourth term in 2018 as well).  Heydar Aliyev ruled Azerbaijan with an iron fist well before its independence, all the way back to the 1970s in what was then Soviet Azerbaijan — Aliyev not only survived the transition from the hard-line regime of Leonid Brezhnev to the era of glasnost and perestroika under Mikhail Gorbachev, he survived the transition from Soviet republic to independent state, carrying with him all of the old traditions of corruption under the Soviet regime into the post-independence era.

Aliyev was able to do so largely because of an early 1990s war with Armenia over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.  The Caucasus is a rough neighborhood, and Azerbaijan’s oil wealth hasn’t insulated it from some of the conflict that’s plagued the region.  Bilateral relations with Armenia are still frayed and Nagorno-Karabakh, ostensibly part of Azerbaijan, is a de facto self-governing region dominated by ethnic Armenians.  That’s unlikely to change with Aliyev’s reelection, nor was it likely to change with the also-contrested reelection of Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan (Սերժ Սարգսյան) in February 2013. But Azerbaijan, unlike Georgia and Armenia, is a Turkic country that’s 95% Muslim, and it looks as much east to central Asia and south to the Middle East as it does west to the rest of the Caucasus and north to Russia.

Though he founded the Yeni Azərbaycan Partiyası (YAP, New Azerbaijan Party) in 1992 to replace the old Soviet-aligned Azerbaijan Communist Party, Aliyev did nothing to modernize the country’s record on corruption, human rights or democracy.  If anything, those problems have worsened with the oil boom that accompanied post-Soviet foreign investment in the 1990s and 2000s, so you can add to that list of trends a growing and severe income inequality.

Hasanli admitted as much, acknowledging the unlikeliness of a free and fair vote, in a piece for The Guardian on Tuesday, in which he also set forth his agenda for Azerbaijan and an indication that he would continue the fight even after the election against what he sees as an illegitimate presidency:

Since the incumbent, Ilham Aliyev, inherited power from his late father 10 years ago, Azerbaijan has become mired in rampant corruption, and the ruling regime has grown ever more authoritarian and ruthless. Most importantly, the ongoing conflict with Armenia has still not been resolved and Azerbaijani territories remain under occupation….

The oil boom of the past few years has made the Aliyev family and its cronies extremely wealthy and the regime will do its utmost to keep power. Aliyev is running for an unprecedented third term, following the disputed 2009 referendum which removed presidential term limits. I believe this contravenes the Azerbaijani constitution and the European convention on human rights. I have launched a legal challenge and demanded a judicial review. Without a clear, unbiased and unequivocal constitutional court ruling on this matter, Aliyev’s third-term presidency is not legitimate.

Sargsyan wins widely anticipated reelection in Armenia

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Just as Rafael Correa won his widely expected reelection as president of Ecuador, Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan (Սերժ Սարգսյան) has won reelection for another five-year term.armenia flag

Exit polls showed Sargsyan with around 58% of the vote to just 32% of the vote for his nearest challenger, Raffi Hovannisian (Րաֆֆի Հովհաննիսյան), an opposition leader and Armenia’s foreign minister from 1991 to 1992 under former president Levon Ter-Petrosyan (Լևոն Տեր-Պետրոսյան).

The race’s most prominent news was the attempted assassination of longshot candidate Paruyr Hayrikyan (Պարոյր Հայրիկեան), a former Soviet dissident, though polls showed that he won no more than 3% in Monday’s vote.

Sargsyan’s reelection was never really in doubt as the campaign closed.

Sargsyan’s party, the Republican Party of Armenia (HHK, Հայաստանի Հանրապետական Կուսակցություն), controls the Armenian National Assembly, and has ruled Armenia since 1998.

Both Ter-Petrosyan and wealthy oligarch Gagik Tsarukian (Գագիկ Ծառուկյան), the leader of the largest Armenian opposition party, Prosperous Armenia (BHK, Բարգավաճ Հայաստան Կուսակցություն) chose not to run in the election, thereby depriving Sargsyan of two potentially dangerous challengers.

Sargsyan has a full plate ahead of him — the Armenian economy is still shaky following a global crisis that sent nearly a million Armenians out of the country, he’ll need to balance Armenia’s good relations with both Europe, the United States and Russia, and he faces two regional challenges over frayed relations with Turkey (and the 100th anniversary of the Armenia genocide in 2015, with emotions running high, won’t likely help matters), and with Azerbaijan, where the breakaway region of disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh continues to rankle relations following a war between Azerbaijan and Armenia that ended in 1994.

Two days, three presidential elections: Cyprus, Ecuador and Armenia

Sunday kicks off the first of two days of presidential elections in three very different regions of the world.

Unlike throughout, say, much of parliamentary-based Europe, each of the presidents elected in the next 48 hours will wield significant power, as each functions both as a head of state and as a head of government.cyprus_world_flagecuador flag icon newarmenia flag

Cyprus

The most contested of the three elections is in Cyprus, where Demetris Christofias is leaving office after a four-year term and where the European Union is set to push hard for bailout (or default) terms shortly following election season after previous talks have failed, due to Christofias’s refusal to privatize much of Cyprus’s public economy.  The frontrunner to win Sunday’s vote is Nicos Anastasiades, candidate of the center-right Democratic Rally (DISY, Δημοκρατικός Συναγερμός or Dimokratikós Sinayermós), and many European leaders seem keen on his election, which would certainly accelerate reform and austerity in Cyprus.

But his lead comes in large part from a split among leftist voters, who are supporting both Stavros Malas, minister of health, the candidate of the governing Progressive Party of Working People (AKEL, Aνορθωτικό Κόμμα Εργαζόμενου Λαού or Anorthotikó Kómma Ergazómenou Laoú) and Giorgos Lillikas, another center-left candidate and former foreign minister.

Although Anastasiades will likely win the first round, he’s not likely to win the 50% support necessary to avoid a runoff, which will be held, if necessary, a week later on February 24 when either Malas or Lillikas would have a clear-cut shot at defeating Anastasiades.

A failure to contain the Cypriot financial contagion, which brings with it the politically unpopular move of bailing out Russian oligarchs who have funded and deposited money into Cyprus’s banks, could exacerbate the still-tenuous Greek bailout or even jumpstart anew the eurozone sovereign debt crisis, so the outcome is more important to Europe than you might expect for an island nation of 1.2 million.

Ecuador

Less suspenseful is the presidential election in South America, where incumbent Rafael Correa is a prohibitive favorite to a third term by one of the largest margins in recent Ecuadorian political history — and certainly since the end of military rule in 1979.

Correa, whose governing Movimiento Patria Altiva i Soberana or Alianza PAIS (Proud and Sovereign Fatherland, or ‘PAIS’) is also looking to retain control of the 137-seat, unicameral Asamblea Nacional (National Assembly), has benefitted from an oil-backed economic boom, the proceeds of which he’s spent on massive infrastructural improvements, especially roads, as well as for direct cash grants that have helped cut Ecuador’s poverty rate from around 67% to between 25% and 30%.  In the tradition of the populist Latin American left, Correa defaulted on the country’s government bonds in 2008 and picked diplomatic fights with the United States.  Critics charge that his administration has become increasingly authoritarian, and his government has made the climate for Ecuador’s media somewhat less free.

His opposition includes Álvaro Noboa, banana magnate and one of Ecuador’s wealthiest businessmen; Guillermo Lasso, a former head of the Banco de Guayaquil; Lucio Gutiérrez, a former president who left office in 2005 after massive protests; and Alberto Acosta, Correa’s former oil and mining minister and co-founder of the Alianza PAIS.

None of those opponents has broken through, however, and Correa holds a lead well above 50% in most polls, meaning that he’s likely to win reelection without resorting to an April 7 runoff.

Armenia

Finally, in the South Caucasus, Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan (Սերժ Սարգսյան) is seeking reelection after taking office in 2008.

Despite a high-profile assassination attempt against opponent Paruyr Hayrikyan (Պարոյր Հայրիկեան) two weeks ago, Sargsyan is almost certain to win reelection — he faces only minor opposition, given that former president Levon Ter-Petrosyan (Լևոն Տեր-Պետրոսյան) ruled out a presidential bid, as did wealthy oligarch Gagik Tsarukian (Գագիկ Ծառուկյան), the leader of the largest Armenian opposition party, Prosperous Armenia (BHK, Բարգավաճ Հայաստան Կուսակցություն).

Sargsyan’s party, the Republican Party of Armenia (HHK, Հայաստանի Հանրապետական Կուսակցություն), currently holds control of the Armenian National Assembly after last year’s May parliamentary elections, and has held power since the election of Sargsyan’s predecessor and benefactor, Robert Kocharyan (Ռոբերտ Քոչարյան) in 1998.

After the election, Armenia’s president will face an economy that’s still recovering from recession and slow growth, balancing good relations with both Europe and the United States, on one hand, and Russia, on the other hand, the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide and dicey diplomatic relations with Turkey, and three decades of ongoing hostility with neighboring Azerbaijan, largely due to the unsettled status of the breakaway region of disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, over which Azerbaijan and Armenia went to war from 1988 to 1994.

Armenian, Azerbaijani elections unlikely to bring bilateral peace

Karabakh

Despite presidential elections in all three South Caucasian nations this year, including Monday’s election in Armenia, campaign season is not likely to bring any change to the ongoing tension between Armenia and neighboring Azerbaijan, nor bring a permanent solution to the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

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Monday’s election is expected to result in reelection for Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan (Սերժ Սարգսյան) and, likewise, the upcoming Azerbaijani election is expected to result in reelection for its own president Ilham Aliyev, in each case without much in the way of robust opposition.

That means that not only are Azeri-Armenian relations unlikely to change anytime soon, it also means that the soured relationship between the two former Soviet republics is unlikely to feature prominently as a campaign issue, even though Karabakh Armenians gathered last week in the Karabakh capital of Stepanakert to celebrate the 25th anniversary of its independence movement.

As the region pushes for closer ties to Europe — Georgia is ardently pursuing not only European Union membership, but membership to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, even under newly elected prime minister Bidzina Ivanishvili (ბიძინა ივანიშვილი), and Baku hosted one of the more exotic Eurovision contests in 2012 after the Azerbaijani Ell and Nikki won the previous year’s contest — the tensions threaten to bring a long-simmering conflict to Europe’s backdoor.

armenia map

Although the two countries, together with Georgia, once formed the Transcaucasian Republic for three short-lived months in 1918, Armenia and Azerbaijan have been at odds for the past 25 years following the emergence of the independence movement of the Nagorno-Karabakh region, located, since a 1936 demarcation of the three Soviet republics, in the South Caucasus in the western part of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic.  The initial Soviet decision to merge Karabakh into the Azerbaijan SSR goes back to the earliest days of Josef Stalin’s Soviet regime and resulted from Stalin’s strategic considerations designed to bring Bolshevism to Turkey. Continue reading Armenian, Azerbaijani elections unlikely to bring bilateral peace

Despite Hayrikyan shooting, Sargsyan remains lock for Armenian election

serzhdmitri

Armenia’s looming February 18 presidential election made headlines a weekend ago when one of its candidate, Paruyr Hayrikyan (Պարոյր Հայրիկեան), was shot.armenia flag

Despite the assassination attempt, however, the election will go on as scheduled, and Hayrikyan has withdrawn a court application to delay the election by two weeks, despite an unsuccessful attempt to obtain the united backing of all opposition candidates behind his campaign.

With or without the delay, however, the election’s result was never incredibly in doubt — Serzh Sargsyan (Սերժ Սարգսյան) is the overwhelming favorite to be reelected as Armenia’s president, in a country with uncertain democratic norms and with several economic and geopolitical problems facing it in the years ahead, including complex relations with the United States, Europe, Russia, Turkey and its neighbors in the South Caucasus.

Despite the fact that Armenian media has focused intensely on the Hayrikyan assassination attempt in the past two weeks, the latest polls shows that Sargsyan (pictured above with Russian prime minister and former Russian president Dmitri Medvedev) will easily win the contest with nearly 68% of Armenians supporting his candidacy, with just 24% supporting Raffi Hovannisian (Րաֆֆի Հովհաննիսյան), with only 5% supporting Hayrikyan and none of the other five candidates winning more than 2% of the vote.

Though elections in Armenia have the trappings of democracy, and they are, in fact, freer and fairer than the show elections of, say, Belarus, they are often rigged in favor of the governing party — and since the collapse of the Soviet Union, that’s meant first the administration of president Levon Ter-Petrosyan from 1991 to 1998, his successor Robert Kocharyan from 1998 to 2008 and now, Kocharyan’s protége, Sargsyan since 2008. Continue reading Despite Hayrikyan shooting, Sargsyan remains lock for Armenian election