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.