Raffi Hovannisian, Opposition meeting protesting the outcome of the 2003 Presidential Elections, Matenadaran, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2003

Despite recent attempts to frustate the activities of the U.S. born former Foreign Minister of Armenia Raffi Hovannisian by evicting him from his downtown Yerevan party headquarters, RFE/RL reports that the charismatic opposition leader has now issued a call to arms of sorts. Speaking at this year’s Heritage Party Congress, Hovannisan called for an end to apathy in society ahead of next year’s parliamentary election which will likely determine the “outcome” of the 2008 presidential election.

“It has to be understood that he who sells his and his children’s future will not have a place in the company of those who are building a homeland of vote bribes,” Hovannisian said, referring to a practice that was commonplace in the last local and national elections.

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“The public itself must realize that it must actively participate in all processes,” he told a congress of his Zharangutyun (Heritage) party which is expected to be a major opposition contender of the 2007 vote.

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“In my opinion, a civic mobilization, a reassessment of civic activism is imperative,” Hovannisian told RFE/RL. “Citizens of the Republic of Armenia must finally realize that the fate of our country hinges on their votes, their participation, their activism.”

“A whole people are outside the opposition and government camps, indifferent, not affiliated with any party, stripped of rights. We should bring that overwhelming majority into play,” said the U.S.-born politician. Civil society representatives and politicians committed to democracy have a big role to play in getting this message across, he added.

It has to be said, civil society to date has been largely impotent and in many cases as corrupt as those government bodies it is meant to counterbalance. The figures for money received in grants, but embezzled or dispersed among relatives and friends, may be significantly less than that among State officials, but the mechanisms of doing so are pretty much the same. No wonder that the public lacks faith in both the NGO sector and the opposition.

A recent USAID-funded poll, for example, confirmed what most of us knew already. There is no process of democratization in Armenia at present, and what has been achieved in the past might actually have regressed. Certainly, there is no faith in the democratic process in Armenia.

The poll also exposed popular concerns about political problems such as vote rigging and human rights abuses, with 58 percent seeing a serious lack of democracy in the country. Its findings also suggest that Armenians widely distrust their government’s assurances that the next parliamentary and presidential elections, due in 2007 and 2008 respectively, will be more democratic than the ones held in the past and strongly criticized by the West. Seventy percent of them do not think that the 2007 elections will be free and fair, according to the survey.

Now, however, it has to stop. Whether it will or not, is another matter. Most people are still resigned to the fact that next year’s parliamentary elections will be as falsified as they’ve always been — despite the somewhat cynical assurance from the Defense Minister Serzh Sarkisyan that they won’t be.

Opposition leaders are certain to scoff at the pledge not least because Armenian officials had given such promises in the past but failed to honor them, with virtually every national election held in the country since independence criticized as undemocratic by Western observers. They regard Sarkisian as the main mastermind of serious fraud reported during the last presidential and parliamentary elections in 2003. The powerful minister managed President Robert Kocharian’s reelection campaign at the time.

On that basis alone, many Armenians who believe in democracy and nation-building in Armenia must surely welcome Hovannisian’s involvement in the creation of a pro-democracy movement in Armenia. Let’s just hope they don’t just sit, wait and hope rather than activate themselves. An interview I conducted with Raffi Hovannisian last year is online here.