Since the 2003 parliamentary elections when many more notorious oligarchs and businessmen with dodgy and sometimes illegal economic concerns entered the Armenian National Assembly than normal, I’ve increasingly raised my concerns with the lack of distinction between the government and criminal elements in society.

Indeed, one regional analyst shrugged his shoulders when I raised this issue with him two years ago. “It’s a mafia state,” he said as a matter of fact. Sure, I agreed, but what does this mean for elections in the future, I responded back. With so much at stake, these are the kind of guys who will never allow something as irritating as the rule of law and democracy to threaten their interests.

Now, it seems, everybody else is as concerned.

In two reports on successive days, both those inside and outside government are concerned in particular at the ruling Republican Party’s links with what is effectively organized crime. This is made more significant by the fact that Defense Minister Serzh Sarkisyan joined the party last month in the hope that he will succeed Kocharian in 2008.

Yesterday, the former Speaker of Parliament Artur Baghdasarian offered his opinion on the matter. Of course, cynics would argue that it’s taken Baghdasarian a little too long to become so outspoken.

“We now see that mobsters or good fellows, as people call them, are entering parties,” he said. “By beating and terrorizing people they are trying to further their interests. A country like that has no future.”

[…]

Some of them are better known to the public with their notorious nicknames that have long sullied their reputations.

And today, the opposition weighed in by saying what every citizen knew already. Of course, nothing new here.

“Pro-government forces have, of course, used criminal elements before,” said Stepan Zakarian of the opposition People’s Party of Armenia (HZhK). “Now they are merging with those elements within the framework of that party.”

“An attempt is being made to drive ideology out of the political field,” he added.

“The political field is infested with criminal thinking, not to mention criminal elements,” agreed Paruyr Hayrikian, a prominent Soviet-era dissident and veteran politician who leads a smaller opposition party called the National Self-Determination Union.

[…]

Mher Shahgeldian, deputy chairman of Baghdasarian’s Orinats Yerkir party, claimed that they represent an additional obstacle to Armenia’s democratization. “We must fight against that,” he told fellow oppositionists.

Hayrikian, who initiated the discussion, called for the creation of a broad-based alliance of “ideology-carrying parties.” He said he is “surprised” by the absence of representatives of another governing party, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), among roundtable participants.

Dashnaktsutyun leaders have repeatedly expressed concern at the increased role of “apolitical elements” in government affairs. The HZhK’s Zakarian warned that the nationalist party will risk being “forced to serve those criminalized forces” if it fails to cooperate with the Armenian opposition.

Meanwhile, RFE/RL’s Press Review carries more on the growing concern in society about the increasing reliance among those at the very top on criminal elements in society.

Aram G. Sargsian, leader of the opposition Democratic Party, stressed in “Aravot” the need for the creation of an “anti-criminal alliance.” “At the heart of everything taking place in Armenia is an illegal distribution of property,” he says. “People who acquired property at knockdown prices in the past are now infiltrating the government in the same fashion to try to divide both property and power.

It’s probably worth noting that since the 2003 presidential and parliamentary elections the number of violent business spats and contract killings in Armenia has significantly increased. Now, while many Armenians wouldn’t lament the loss of some of these guys, it’s worth noting that in the last two assassinations innocent bystanders were also killed.

The criminal is raging in Armenia, and another citizen of the Republic of Armenia became victim. On August 8 another incident happened in the Republic of Armenia. On the Yerevan-Gyumri road, some people in a VAZ 2109 car shot Alexander Givoyev, businessman, the chair of the Committee for Children’s Rights, and killed him.

[…]

If Givoyev were killed in another place, nothing would happen to the women. Like in the incident in Malatia, Yerevan. But for the native criminal, it is not a problem to kill Givoyev and others. The problem is to do it with the public watching to create an atmosphere of public psychosis. Therefore, they shoot in front of the stand, in a busy part of the street to show to the public that they are the strongest.

[…]

Moreover, the government itself seeks for the support of the criminal, rounds up the criminal under the same roof, in the hall of the government, and vows a victory, vows that the first fruits will be produced in three or four months. Obviously, the fruits appeared earlier, in three or four weeks. And one can only imagine what will happen in three or four months.

All in all, a sad situation. What’s even sadder, however, is that few potential voters in Armenia seem to care, and why should they? Almost everybody with their heads above water are part of the same system, as Haykakan Zhamanak editorialized this week.

“Haykakan Zhamanak” makes the point in an editorial that ordinary people breaking the law must not expect their rulers to be law-abiding. “A citizen of the Republic of Armenia stealing water has no right to accuse an official embezzling the state budget,” say the paper. “With almost all Armenians stealing today water or something else, our chances of having an honest minister are terribly slim, almost negligible,” it adds. “We must not only note who plunders what but think how many people in the country will not behave in the same manner if they find themselves in the same position.”

Let’s hope something changes in time for the 2007 parliamentary elections. However, there’s not much time left. Indeed, some are forecasting the vote to be called as early as January. That’s when the shit will hit the fan, one assumes, so God help us.

As always, check out Vahan Ishkhanian’s excellent article on how the oligarchs and mafia have carved up Yerevan among themselves.