Although the Constitutional Court ruled last April that the eviction of tenants from their homes in central Yerevan to make way for arguably the largest land grab in Yerevan’s history was unconstitutional, nothing much has changed. Indeed, while ruling in their favor, the Constitutional Court was careful enough to word their decision so vaguely as to allow for further evictions and to prevent the true worth of the land their homes once stood on from being paid out.

The Constitutional Court ruled that a 2002 government decision that paved the way for the ongoing massive redevelopment in the city center violated several articles of Armenia’s constitution.

[…]

The verdict deals a serious blow to the credibility of the Armenian government which has insisted all along that large-scale construction which is rapidly changing central Yerevan is legal and fair.

Hundreds of local residents have been forced to vacate their mostly decrepit houses over the past two years. Many of them are unhappy with the amount of compensation paid to them by the state, saying that it was set well below the market value of their properties as a result of government corruption. Some have resisted eviction orders with hunger strikes and other extreme methods of struggle.

[…]

The court decision seems to be a largely moral victory for the disgruntled evicted residents as it is unlikely to entail any practical consequences. The court only ordered the Armenian government and parliament to bring the relevant legislation into conformity with the constitution and said nothing about property restitution or compensation.

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While photographing and interviewing participants at a rally held outside the Presidential Palace by citizens evicted from their homes to make way for new construction in central Yerevan, shocking news started to circulate that a man had set himself on fire in Yerevan’s Republic Square.

An hour later that news was confirmed with RFE/RL’s Emil Danielyan informing CRD/TI Armenia that the man was not expected to survive. Although there was speculation that the man had also been evicted from his home, this theory has now been ruled out.

RFE/RL’s Irina Hovannisyan now reports that the man has since died from burns that covered 80 percent of his body at a Yerevan hospital.

More details and links to news reports are available here.

Another Parliamentary Election Monitor is now available on the CRD/TI Election Monitor 2007 blog. This time it mainly deals with assurances from the Aleksan Harutyunyan that Public TV and Radio will be impartial in its coverage of the May vote.

Following on from various private television stations denying that high costs for political advertising were introduced to prevent opposition parties from taking out slots in the broadcast media, RFE/RL reports that the Chairperson of the managing board of Armenian Public Television and Radio, Alexsan Harutiunyan, has defended his station’s policy on pricing. He also took the opportunity to promise that his journalists will remain impartial during the election.

However, the results of a recent media monitoring study by the Caucasus Media Institute concludes that Public TV has some way to go before it can say that it has met such a promise.

The public television and radio channels, H1 and Public Radio demonstrated different trends in their coverage: on H1 there appears at first sight to be a high degree of access granted to non incumbent political parties who received 48% of overall coverage on the channel with the incumbent parties receiving 52%. […]

In reality in H1’s news coverage the incumbent parties received a very dominant share of coverage (75%) with non incumbent parties only receiving 25%. […]

[…] The public service broadcaster H1 has a special responsibility to ensure that its coverage provides a greater degree of balance between political parties and candidates and both political parties and the broadcaster should pro-actively engage in the campaign to ensure balanced coverage during the pre-campaign and campaign period itself.

The full post is here.

As I’ve constantly said, the music scene here sucks because with one or two exceptions, although I can’t really name any, everything is decided and determined by connections and the support of government-linked sponsors. We all know that Nune Yesayan, for example, is a has-been who has only managed to “survive” thanks to her close contacts with Bagrat Sarkisyan, Gerard Cafesjian’s local partner at the appallingly propagandist and tasteless Armenia TV.

Now, we have another talentless musical non-entity who Zarchka at Life Around Me wrote about in September.

Hayko started his career translating a Spanish singer Luis Miguel’s songs into Armenian and representing them as those of his own. He was all but sure that no one in Armenia knew Luis Miguel and that his little secret would never be disclosed.

But his calculations and assumptions were not approved soon when people got to know Luis Miguel and compared their songs. As far as Hayko was very small to be famous, there remained only a single option, that Hayko was cheating. Although he didn’t learn his lesson and soon after pretending to be a composer he translated another old Spanish song by Alejandro Sans, this time representing it as a song on the basis of Spanish folk music. Whether it is still the influence of Ardzaganq Studio where everyone just sing translated songs of famous singers, can’t say, but one thing for sure- what an impudence!

I don’t even mention poor musical abilities he is gifted, the limited pitch level of his voice and the lack of the ability to conjoin two words together.

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The 2007 Parliamentary Election scheduled for 12 May is considered critical to the process of democratization in Armenia. Some even consider that the election is the most important parliamentary vote in Armenia’s recent 15-year history as an independent nation. However, international observers have continually reported that elections in Armenia fail to meet international standards.

When asked to prioritize possible solutions to improve the situation in the country, the Center for Regional Development/Transparency International Armenia’s 2006 Corruption Perceptions Survey identified that most respondents pointed to the necessity of ensuring free and fair elections.

As more and more ethnic Armenians living in the Diaspora connect with the modern-day Republic, what can a citizen of another country do to help make the coming election in May free and fair for the citizens of this country?

Take Action! Become an ELECTION OBSERVER this Spring!

Full details in English are available here, and in Armenian here.

Nikol Pashinian, Aylentrank Rally, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian, CRD / TI Armenia 2007

I’ve just posted the latest Parliamentary Election Monitor on the CRD/TI Armenia blog. The post links to reports on the latest developments surrounding the May parliamentary election and also features photographs and commentary on today’s rally by Aylentrank in central Yerevan.

The full post is here.

As guest blogger Tamar Palandjian, Youth Program Coordinator for the Civil Society Institute, recently announced on this site, today was Barekendan. Explaining that the event was staged to urge society, and especially youth, to wake up from what many civil society activists consider to be a slumber, Tamar detailed what is still a traditional festival.

This Armenian holiday is celebrated on Sunday, the day before Lent begins. Similar to the Western traditions of Mardi Gras or Carnival, it is a day in which people are encouraged to come out of their traditional roles and play games, jokes and eat and drink merrily prior to fasting. Barekendan comes from two words - bari which means “good” and kendan or the shortened version of kendani, which means “alive” or “living”.

On her Live Journal page, another civil society activist, Isabella Sargsyan, went a little further. Sargsyan explains that on this day people wear masks and costumes and are called upon to be uninhibited in their actions while also “truly expressing their opinions.”

Seeing as how the Parliamentary elections of 2007 are critical for the democratization processes in Armenia, Barekendan serves as an ideal occasion for the civil society activists to call upon their fellow dormant citizens to “wake up” and become involved.

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I’ve just made another post on CRD/TI Armenia’s Election Monitor 2007, and this time its about Gagik Tsarukian and Prosperous Armenia. As we all know by now, Prosperous Armenia has now become a major part of the political landscape here, so feel free to discuss any of the issues raised over on the post. However, please note the guidelines regarding normal etiquette above the commens box.

The Armenian Blog Review notes with some sarcasm that Kornelij is not surprised that multi-millionaire businessman, MP and former sportsman Gagik Tsarukian has been re-elected as Chairperson of the party he founded last year. Indeed, Tsarukian’s Prosperous Armenia party is a phenomenon that appears to have taken the whole country by storm.

Like him or loathe him, there’s no avoiding him, and Tsarukian’s name is on everybody’s lips these days — regardless of their political preference or persuasion. RFE/RL has more on yesterday’s Prosperous Armenia party congress held in Yerevan.

The full post is here.

I’ve just posted a new entry over the CRD/TI Armenia Election Monitor 2007 Blog on the increasing number of former and current military commanders that are now taking an interest in the May vote. The post also briefly touches upon the issue of multiple voting by soldiers that has always been a problem for elections in Armenia in the past.

One issue that remains as relevant today as it’s ever been is the role of the military in political life in Armenia. While still effectively in a state of hostilities with neighboring Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh, the military does not play as much of a role in the internal life of the country as it does in some other countries.

However, many of its high-ranking officers are believed to control lucrative sectors of the economy or certain parts of the country and it’s no wonder that problems with soldiers voting during elections is a perennial feature of elections to date. The preliminary statement of the National Democratic Institute on the May 2003 parliamentary election gives just one example.

It’s especially interesting when you consider that the Defense Minister, Serzh Sarkisyan, ran on the proportional list of the Republican Party last time round, and is likely to do so again in May.

The full post is here.

Quick question for people. I was passing by the Constitutional Court this morning and noticed a group of about 5 soldiers with handguns standing on the corner outside. When I returned past 3 hours later, the soldiers were actually manning the security guard cabin outside the Constitutional Court.

Thing is, while this strikes me as improper in a country supposedly heading for democracy and certainly sends the wrong message when the military should not take a role in the internal life of the country, I can’t remember if it’s always been like this or is this a new development and if so, why? I hope that it’s not connected to the election.

If anyone knows anything please leave a comment. Everyone I’ve asked here can’t remember apart from one person who used to intern at the Court in 1999. There were no soldiers then — just normal police. Anyway, I’ll check again tomorrow to see if the situation is the same or if it was just a special day or some special occasion.

Even then, however, the military should not be involved, or maybe they always have been. Don’t know, to be honest.

I’ve just found that NowPublic.com have posted a story on the development of blogging in Armenia in time for the 2007 parliamentary election. It seems that Mary Joyce’s post as well as news that we’ll translate the Election Blogging Guide into Armenian has attracted the attention of many e-democracy pundits outsde of Armenia.

Thanks to Global Voices I have discovered a significant project called the Election Blogging Guide. Armenia of course was part of the Soviet bloc which discouraged corrupt forms of bourgeois democracy such as blogging.* The elections are scheduled for May 12, 2007.

[…]

* OK, so there was no blogging available to anybody during the Cold War. That’s a minor quibble.

The full story is here.