Ortachiya, Aragatsotn Region, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2006

The break-up of the former Soviet Union has given Armenia’s largest minority, the Yezidis, new freedoms. But this has proven to be a mixed blessing, as geopolitical and historical concerns have riven the small community. Text and photography by Onnik Krikorian

Nestled at the foot of Mount Aragats, Armenia’s highest peak, the villages of Riya Taza and Alagyaz hardly merit more than a passing glance from motorists heading north towards the border with Georgia. Elderly women dressed in colourful garb nonetheless line the road, while children play nearby among rusting abandoned vehicles and farmers herd their cattle in the surrounding pastures. Few stop at the makeshift shacks selling basic groceries and provisions on the roadside. In fact, nobody pays much attention at all.

But for academics from as far away as the UK, France, Germany and Japan, these small, impoverished villages are a dream come true. Located 60 kilometres from Yerevan, the Armenian capital, Riya Taza, Alagyaz and other villages interconnected by pockmarked roads are home to one of the biggest concentrations of Yezidis in the country.

The full feature story accompanied by photographs is available in the January issue of Geographical, the magazine of the Royal Geographical Society, or online at http://geographical.co.uk/Features/Yezidis_Jan_08.html.

Vahan Hovannisian, Dilijan, Tavoush Region, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2008

Saturday’s pre-election campaign by Armenian Revolutionary Federation — Dashnaktsutyun (ARF-D) presidential candidate Vahan Hovannisian in the north-eastern Tavoush region marked a refreshing change. Rather than follow the predictable revolutionary politics of the street by former president, Levon Ter-Petrossian, or the carefully stage-managed media moments of the prime minister, Serge Sargsyan, Hovannisian actually did something somewhat unique for Armenia. He actually campaigned.

Indeed, the party’s attempt to bring new campaigning technology into the area of elections has been noticed by everybody since last year’s parliamentary election in Armenia. Coupled with the fact that the party has not been as personality-based as others, many consider that it has the most democratic structure in the country. Moreover, its standing as the oldest active political party in Armenia paid off during the 2007 parliamentary vote. The ARF-D attracted 177,907 or 13.2 percent of the vote.

As a member of Socialist International, the party also has a very definite left-wing orientation, but its more nationalist policies on Azerbaijan and Turkey might lead some to consider it more national-socialist than socialist. Interestingy, its campaign promise to increase pensions during the May 2007 parliamentary election were dismissed by the prime minister as unachievable although somewhat ironically, Sargsyan went on to do the same anyway.

Writing for E-Channel, Gor Abrahamyan assessed Hovannisian’s campaign as well as his chances of contesting next month’s vote.

The ARFP candidate had two strong resources for the start. First of all, the traditionally stable and guaranteed segment of voters for Dashnaktsutyun. Secondly, the strong discipline maintained inside the party, which was demonstrated during the parliamentary elections in May, 2007. Vahan Hovhannisyan’s propaganda is also different from the others since he has been promoting the team, the party, the platform and the ideology. None of the teams of any of the candidates taking part in the elections can be striking with such characteristic features.

ARFP introduces completely new technologies to the Armenian political culture that evoke certain interest in the activities of Vahan Hovhannisyan’s electoral headquarters and, consequently, also the candidate of ARFP. […] They have been conveying a more civilized nature to the ARFP campaign, not allowing giving due to the woven political intrigues.

ARFP is the only force involved in electoral struggle least expected to reject nomination in favor of another candidate. After the parliamentary elections in 2007, ARFP allowed no digression from its adopted path, remaining loyal to the position of participating in the presidential elections with his own candidate. It was obvious from the beginning that the party, having received positions from RPA, would take advantage of the administrative resources they had, which they have been doing now extremely cautiously.

[…] the modern occidental political technologies applied by the party have been gradually releasing ARFP from the conservative/nationalist image, conveying an image of a modern social/democrat force instead.

The full post is available on the Armenia Election Monitor 2008.

Dilijan, Tavoush Region, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2008

As part of its Decision 2008 coverage of the 19 February presidential election, ArmeniaNow has started to examine the opinions of voters on certain issues rather than often partisan analysts and activists in the country. In the first, the online publication examines the expectations Armenia’s 530,000 pensioners have from the next president.

Interestingly, and almost certainly aware of the potential influence over half a million senior citizens can have on the outcome of next month’s presidential election, the prime minister has already increased pensions despite saying that such a move was impossible when the Armenian Revolutionary Federation — Dashnaktsutyun (ARF-D) advocated such a move during last year’s parliamentary election.

If that move was calculated to say the least, then the tactic seems to have paid off to some extent. However, as with other voters, there is a lot of skepticism too.

Ofik Hakobyan, 66, from Kapan does not anticipate anything from the elections, but wants life to get better at least for the youth, if not for elderly.

She knows the candidates but has no idea about their campaign platforms. “Well, Serzh said that pensions would be raised again. I haven’t heard it from anybody else, maybe all of them will say the same thing during the campaign.”

[…]

Anush Kyureghyan, 83, says she won’t vote for anybody, because she’s been deprived of her benefit, and she lives alone, whereas “there are people who receive a pension, and have a job, and have somebody helping them, but still receive a benefit…” She doesn’t know the candidates: “It doesn’t matter who will be elected, whoever it is he will care only for himself.” She’d like goods to be cheap, instead of raising pensions for a couple of pennies and raising the prices more.

The full post is available on the Armenia Election Monitor 2008.

Ijevan, Tavoush Region, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2008

With a 7.45am start and the temperature well below zero, actually -7 to be precise, it was hardly the nicest of times to accompany other journalists on their way to cover the pre-election campaign of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation — Dashnaktsutyun’s Vahan Hovannisyan in the northeastern Tavoush region of Armenia.

True, more snow had fallen in the night and Yerevan looked magnificent illuminated only by street lights in a city center devoid of traffic and pedestrians, but it would have been nicer to depart a little later. As it happened, the two vans taking film crews left the ARF-D’s central headquarters an hour later than scheduled because timekeeping is unfortunately rarely observed here.

The early start was conditioned by the need to transport Hovannisian’s pre-election campaign materials as well as the billboards necessary for the event in the same vans. Still, it gave me time to grab a bite to eat at a local cafe and walk around a little.

The full post is available on the Armenia Election Monitor 2008.

Serge Sargsyan Pre-Election Campaign Rally, Massiv, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2008

Today marked a welcome change — a morning call from E-Channel’s Gegham Vardanian alerting me to a pre-election campaign rally by the prime minister and presidential favorite, Serge Sargsyan, in the Massiv district of Yerevan. As this blog has almost entirely focused on the campaign by the former president, Levon Ter-Petrossian, the opportunity to photograph and observe some of the other candidates in action was very much welcomed despite the weather.

It should also be pointed out that this blog and E-Channel have agreed to voluntarily cooperate with the sharing of information and materials for the 19 February presidential election in Armenia. With the media becoming more politicized than it’s ever been in Armenia, finding more neutral sources of news and triangulating it with eye witness accounts as well as other reports from a variety of sources has become the only way to get a clear picture of the situation these days.

Other media outlets were also in attendance. In amongst the dozen TV cameras and other journalists covering the event, RFE/RL was one of them although it’s worth pointing out that A1 Plus put the number of those in attendance at “Over a thousand” while E-Channel put it at “1,000.”

Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian pledged to turn Armenia into a “brilliant country” and responded to intensifying verbal attacks from former President Levon Ter-Petrosian as he took his election campaign to Yerevan on Friday.

Sarkisian spent a large part of his speech at a campaign rally in the city’s northern Nor Nork suburb condemning the “malicious” discourse of his most bitter opposition challenger.

“But I am asking you not to succumb to provocations, not to respond to malice with malice because our aim is not just to garner many votes,” he told several hundred people who gathered in front of a local church. “Our aim is to move Armenia forward after the elections … It is never possible to do good things with malice.”

The full post is available on the Armenia Election Monitor 2008.

Levon Ter Petrosian Pre-Election Campaign Rally, Liberty Square, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2008

It has to be said that since photographing the campaign of Levon Ter-Petrossian for next month’s 19 February presidential election since 21 September last year — long before the official campaign period actually started at the beginning of this week — I’ve been meaning to concentrate on other candidates, and not least because without doing so this election can’t really be considered free or fair.

Opinion polls and conversations with people on the streets do not create the impression of Ter-Petrossian occupying the position as the main challenger to the prime minister, Serge Sargsyan — for now at least. Instead, for some reason, both the government and opposition media appear to want to create that role for him. Some believe, for example, that Sargsyan stands more of a chance of winning a relatively clean vote (for Armenia) against the former president whose name is synonymous with the corruption, criminality and cronyism of the 1990s.

At any rate, until I find out the details of the other campaigns, especially that of the prime minister and the ARF-D’s Vahan Hovannisyan, I suppose I couldn’t miss it, and especially to compare the number of those in attendance with the number who showed up at Ter-Petrossian’s three Liberty Square rallies held from October-December last year. Then, while the radical opposition and its supporters in the local media claimed anywhere between 20-70,000 were in attendance, independent observers put the number at 12-15,000.

The question was, how many could Ter-Petrosian attract during the actual official pre-election campaign period?

The full post is available on the Armenia Election Monitor 2008.

Today marked the official start of the pre-election period for the 19 February 2008 presidential election in Armenia. As with most elections, the campaign of course started long ago. Ironically, however, rather than the party of power campaigning throughout the country to the concern of civil society activists who screamed foul, it was instead the former president, Levon Ter-Petrossian, who was everywhere.

In a sense, the start of the 2008 presidential election in Armenia was actually somewhat subdued as a result. Large billboards of the prime minister, Serge Sargsyan, sprung up here and there, but nowhere in as large a number as those for the pro-governmental Republican and Prosperous Armenia parties during last May’s parliamentary election. The prime minister’s face could also be seen adorning the front of a few election offices scattered throughout the city.

They may have been less visible than in past elections in Armenia, but for now at least, there was no sign of any other political activity. One of the reasons for this might have been the cold. At least three candidates for the 2008 presidential election , including the Armenian Revolutionary Federation — Dashnaktsutyun who last year launched their campaign with an open-air public event, instead chose the warm interior of the Marriott Armenia to hold press conferences.

First up, however, was Orinats Yerkir’s Artur Baghdasarian, a former Speaker of the National Assembly who fell out of grace with the authorities his party was itself part of starting from April 2004. In last year’s parliamentary election, Baghdasarian’s Orinats Yerkir was just one of two opposition parties that made it past the 5 percent threshold for representation in the Armenian National Assembly, attracting 7.1 percent of the vote.

In a roundup of the start of the pre-election campaign, albeit biased in favor of Ter-Petrossian, RFE/RL briefly covered Baghdasarian’s press conference as well as that of the ARF-D’s Vahan Hovannisian.

Another major opposition contender, former parliament speaker Artur Baghdasarian, kicked off his campaign, titled “A civic movement for new Armenia,” with an official presentation of his 32-page election manifesto in Yerevan. “My victory will eliminate corruption and embezzlement rooted in the country,” he told to journalists and activists of his Orinats Yerkir party. “My victory will mean equality before law, a drastic rise in the living standards of the people of Armenia.”

Baghdasarian dismissed claims by government loyalists that the Armenian opposition can not scuttle a handover of power from outgoing President Robert Kocharian to Sarkisian because it has failed to field a single presidential candidate. “There are and there will be alliances,” he said without elaborating. “As for the authorities, they are not united either,” he added, noting that Sarkisian is also challenged by a candidate of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), a junior partner in the governing coalition.

The Dashnaktsutyun candidate, Vahan Hovannisian, held a similar campaign event in Yerevan later in the day. Both he and Baghdasarian have said that the presidential election will require two rounds of voting.

The full post is available on the Armenia Election Monitor 2008.

Photojournalism will form an important component of the Armenia Election Monitor 2008, and while the pre-election campaign will not officially start until tomorrow, some candidates have already been campaigning for several months. Perhaps the most prominent of those is former president, Levon Ter-Petrossian, who effectively started his pre-election campaign on 21 September last year.

Anyway, albeit as a first rough test, some images from the rallies which followed are now available as an audio slideshow. The sound quality leaves a little to be desired, but it is anticipated that the rough edges will be smoother for later photo presentations. Later presentations will also include ambient sound and a more polished script. For now, though, the first test presentation starts as follows and may be viewed by clicking the link below.

Although the pre-election campaign period doesn’t officially start until Monday 21st January, unofficially it started months ago in September with the return of Armenia’s first and former president, Levon Ter-Petrossian, to active politics. Starting from October, Ter-Petrossian and his supporters held political rallies once a month. Sympathetic journalists and his supporters in civil society put the number of those attending each meeting at anywhere between 20-100,000 people. Independent observers put it more like 12-15,000.

Whatever the number, one thing was certain. Ter-Petrossian’s return introduced an element of uncertainty and unpredictability into the race to succeed the incumbent president in the election to be held next month. Considered more like a King to his supporters, government and opposition supporters started to describe the 19 February 2008 vote as shaping up to be a two horse race between Ter Petrossian and the prime minister, Serge Sargsyan.

Others such as veteran opposition politician Vazgen Manukian instead warned that while many Armenians despise the current authorities, many more dislike Ter-Petrossian.

The audio-visual photo presentation is available on the Armenia Election Monitor 2008.

Yesterday marked the first anniversary of the murder of ethnic Armenian newspaper editor and journalist Hrant Dink in Istanbul, Turkey. Dink was shot outside the office of the Agos newspaper on 19 January 2007. A prolific advocate for civil, human and minority rights in Turkey, Dink was killed by 17-year-old Ogun Samast. His murder shocked the world and marked one of few times when Armenian, Turkish and other bloggers spoke about an event making headline news across the world with one voice.

A year on and the conversation in the blogosphere might be less, but many people the world over — and not least in Armenia and Turkey — remember Dink. A rare voice calling for reconciliation between Armenians and Turks, Dink’s message and legacy is still remembered today. A week ago, Blogian posted information on Hrant Dink memorial events to be held the world over.

Internations Musings makes a short but to the point post consisting of just two photographs taken in Istanbul with the title “I believe darkness will one day reunite with light.” Rastî simply posts various quotes and photographs, including one from the Armenian Foreign Minister, Vartan Oskanian.

The brutality, the impunity, the violence of Hrant’s murder serves several political ends. First, it makes Turkey less interesting for Europe, which is exactly what some in the Turkish establishment want. Second, it scares away Armenians and other minorities in Turkey, from pursuing their civil and human rights. Third, it scares those bold Turks who are beginning to explore these complicated, sensitive subjects in earnest.

The full post is available on Global Voices Online.

With the start of the 2008 presidential election in Armenia now less than a week away, the Oneworld Multimedia blog is unlikely to be updated regularly. Indeed, from now until the end of February it is instead likely that all posts will be election-related and posted on the Armenia Election Monitor 2008 at:

http://blog.oneworld.am

Writing in the comments section of a post on The Armenian Observer, Aramazd Ghalamkaryan provides details of a Yerevan-based opinion poll which shows the first president, Levon Ter Petrosian, narrowly leading the prime minister, Serge Sargsyan, ahead of next month’s presidential election.

The information is particularly interesting given that as Aramazd is one of Ter-Petrossian’s campaign team and responsible for his official campaign site, we can perhaps take the figures as coming from an election poll conducted for Ter-Petrossian’s campaign. Basically, these are the figures that Ter-Petrossian is likely working with.

Onnik, believe it or not, as of today […], when it is clear that Raffi cannot run for presidency, the truth is that Ter-Petrossian is the #1 candidate for presidency. Believe it or not, but _in Yerevan_ the actual picture is as follows:

1. LTP - 22%
2. SS - 17%
3. Vahan ARFD - 8%
4. the rest - 8%
5. have not decided yet - 40%

The full post is available on the Armenia Election Monitor 2008.