The Armenian Observer Journal

This blog is a limited mirror of my main blog at The Armenian Observer Blog - http://ditord.wordpress.com. Please visit it for full content and comments.

Opposition supporters are dancing around the tents in the Freedom Square © Photo by Artur Papyan, Yerevan, 2008

Following a rally which lasted several hours, starting at 15:00 which gathered dozens of thousands of supporters, Armenian opposition leaders announced a timeless sit down protest in the Freedom Square, in front of the Opera House. Nikol Pashinyan, making the announcement, demanded, that the mayor of Yerevan Yervand Zakharyan and the head of RA Police Hayk Harutyunyan send police in uniforms to ensure the security of protesters.

( Read more... )Originally posted at The Armenian Observer Blog. </p>

A reader of E-channel has sent in a video material, illustrating a case of ballot stuffing on the February 19 Presidential Elections.

We can see how a man is stuffing the ballot box, while the electoral commission members watch him without attempting to interfere or stop the illegal activity.

Source: Echannel.am

Opposition Protest in front of Government Building © Photo by Artur Papyan, Yerevan, 2008

Armenian opposition gathered more then 50 thousand supporters for a rally protesting the election results in front of Matenadaran today, closing the Mashtots avenue from Matenadaran till Nairi Cinema theater. Nikol Pashinyan, one of the most vocal opposition leaders, editor in-cheif of the Haykakan Zhamanak daily announced, that the opposition denounces the elections, and calls for a new round of elections. Presidential candidate, Former President Levon Ter-Petrossian in his speech characterized the elections as "shameful". He further called Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan's victory the "victory of the criminal world, ....victory of Mher from Tokhmakh, Mouk from Mkhchyan, Nemets Rubo, Dodi Gago, Lfik Samo…” , naming the oligarchs supporting the Prime Minister, who according to preliminary data, has won the elections by more then 52 %.

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Originally posted at The Armenian Observer Blog.

The elections signified by an incredible number of violations, are over. I spent the election day in the newsroom of the Echannel.am. Complaints and information on various violations kept pouring in. The situation was apparently several times worse in the Regions. Our journalists visited several sites of violations and noted the boldness with which those were being carried out: ballots stuff, voters intimidated, journalists hindered from their work. Reports from Hetq, Echannel, Armnifo, A1plus give me enough background to state, that the authorities most coldheartedly raped the concept of free and fair elections and might as well get away with it.  Anyway, below is some official data on the outcome of elections from Echannel.am.

The president of the Central Electoral Commission Garegin Azatyan informed that in the elections of February 19 in 1913 polling stations from 1923 opened in Armenia voted about 1 million 669thousand 114 voters. The following is the breakdown of votes for all candidates:

1. Serzh Sargsyan -859 658 votes
2. Levon Ter Petrosyan – 349 781 votes
3. Arthur Baghdasaryan -271 698 votes
4. Vahan Hovhannisyan- 100 545 votes
5. Vazgen Manoukyan -20 930 votes
6. Tigran Karapetyan -9 747 votes
7. Artashes Geghamyan -7 458 votes
8. Arman Melikyan – 4 354 votes
9. Aram Harutyunyan 3 098 votes

With only six hours to go till the polling stations close in Armenia, the international media seem to be largely uninterested in the developments here, with very basic coverage of the elections only available from major international news agencies, as well as the BBC and Euronews.

The elections are largely described as a transfer of power from outgoing leader Robert Kocharyan to his ally and prime minister Serzh Sarksyan. All international media reports point to economic growth, as the main factor in favor of Serzh Sargsyan - described as the clear frontrunner, although some point to doubts about the validity of the polls indicating Prime Minister's high rating.

The BBC describes the Armenian elections as "fiercely-contested", resulting from the dramatic comeback of Armenia's former President Levon Ter-Petrosian as an opposition candidate.

Bloomberg is mostly concentrating on the possibility of street protests by the opposition over raising concerns that the vote may be rigged. The information service points to the fact, that Armenia is under pressure from U.S. and the European Union to strengthen its democracy at a time when it is receiving hundred of millions of dollars in aid, indicating, that there have already been charges against the authorities by the main opposition challenger Levon Ter-Petrossian of government attempts to control the vote and ensure Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan's victory.

Reuters also notes, the opposition claims, that the campaign has been unfair, and predicts street protests, as in the case of previous elections in Armenia which "have been followed by mass opposition protests alleging ballot fraud. However, the news service notes the polls, which "give Sarksyan a lead over the rest of the field, led by former former speaker of parliament Artur Baghdasaryan and Levon Ter-Petrosyan, a former president who was forced to resign in 1998 but is now seeking a comeback, and quotes Sarksyan saying:"
If there is a second round I would prefer to fight against Levon Ter-Petrosyan".

Euronews is highlighting the fact, that "failure of the opposition to unite around a single candidate has boosted Sarksyan's chances", and predicting, that upon election "Sarksyan will have to deal with the so-called "frozen" conflict over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh".

The "Nagorno-Karabakh" perspective is also covered by Agence France-Presse, which also indicates, that Serzh Sarkisian, seen as the fruntrunner, is likely to follow in Kocharian's footsteps if elected -- pursuing close ties with Moscow and maintaining a hawkish stance in relations with neighbouring Azerbaijan and Turkey.

Originally posted at The Armenian Observer Blog

Photos: Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2008

Armenia Election Monitor 2008 brings the first photos of the election day - "Finally the day has arrived", writes Onnik Krikoryan with relief, "Whatever the outcome one thing is certain. In this round or a possible second, Armenia will elect a new president in a vote that international observers hope will represent a marked improvement over the last presidential election in 2003."

in Armenian

2 million 328 thousand 320 voters are eligable to vote for the new president of the country, Athanatoi (Hrant)  writes in his blog,  reminding that 8000 police officers are on duty today to ensure security of the polls. The initial results of the Armenian presidential elections will be known by 6:00 AM on February 20th.

"Ah yes, today is the day where corruption, blind nationalism, and fraud all come together in the form of Armenia's Presidential Election!" Rhyne of Armenia blog writes from US. "One thing's for certain, this is not going to be a demonstration of democracy and whoever is elected will first and foremost get himself rich, then those near him, and whatever is left will be spread among the lower individuals in power".

հայերեն

Despite rapid political developments and political campaign pouring onto the Armenian voter from all sides, many people haven't yet made up their mind about which presidential candidate to support. The situation is similar offline - that is to say in real life, as well as online - in the virtual reality of Internet diaries. «Which is the right thing - having a stance, or not?», Christina is asking in her «One day...» blog, further explaining:

I can't decide on my stance for the upcoming presidential elections. I want a change - but I don't see anyone, who could show me - a regular person with mediocre abilities and feelings, the way to those changes.

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The ever lively Armenian LiveJournal segment of Armenian Blogosphere are organizing a contest: Best Armenian LiveJournal Post of 2007. Despite some Bloggers have already started complaining that this competition is not useful and that there are no clear criteria of selection, I think it is a worthy undertaking, especially from the point of view of supporting publication of higher quality content - so why not, especially as Kornelij very justly pointed out, the number of blogs is growing, but the quality of blog-posts is degrading? Below are details of the competition:

In order to be considered, please post in the comments section of this post a link to the article of the LiveJournal user, which for you was the most interesting and valuable. The conditions of the competition are:

1. You cannot post a link to your own article.
2. You can link to a post, where comments are more interesting/valuable, then the article itself.
3. Each user can nominate a maximum of 5 posts, given that they come from different authors.

On the website Miacum.ru a section called "Best of LJ" will be created, where the 10 "prize-winning" posts of the 2007 year will be published. The winner will receive a lot of PR and will be given the opportunity to post a message to the Armenian Blogosphere, which we will publish on the Top of the homepage. The deadline for presenting links and discussions is 1 month. The user, whose posting is nominated more then anybody elses, will win.

With best wishes, Miacum team

[2008-02-12 02:33 | Echannel.am] Interesting developments: during a press conference today the press secretary of "Hairitage" party Hovsep Khurshudyan and MP Vardan Khachatryan have announced the decision made by the board of the party about endorsing the candidacy of Ex-President Levon Ter-Petrossian during the upcoming presidential elections.

This move was both expected and unexpected: we all knew, that Raffi Hovhannisyan, as a leader of an opposition party in Parliament, would have preferred to support an opposition candidate, however, there are vast difference in approaches to foreign policy issues like Armenia - Turkey relations and Karabakch resolution between what the "Hairitage" party/Raffi Hovhannisyan have been proposing so far, and what Levon Ter-Petrossian has said or has implied. Moreover, back in the 90's, Raffi Hovhannisyan was fired from his post of Foreign Minister over his disagreement with Levon Ter-Petrossian regarding the Armenian Genocide issue and foreign policy towards Turkey. It remains to be seen, just how much "Hairitage" has compromised, and in return for what?

Per my request, respectable Mr. Uzogh has drafted his favourite list of Armenian blogs - and I've been delighted to find at least two blogs in the list, which I hadn't been paying much attention to earlier - while I defiantly should - so I can't thank Uzogh enough. And here, ladies and gentlemen, is the list - not quite ten, but definitely top :)

1. 517design
2. ahousekeeper
3. arzuni
4. comte_de_varand
5. david_sand
6. irukan
7. kornelij
8. markgrigorian
9. orientalian
10. viraboff
    
11. Ditord (this is like - me :))
12. Onnik Krikoryan living here and here.

Karen Prichard, the head of a division at the British non-governmental organization ECHO made a statement at Armenia Marriott Hotel on 8 February, according to which the Armenian media have been covering the process of the current presidential election in Armenia objectively and impartially on the whole:

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The question is - why and how could an authoritative UK research organization do such a gross mistake? Is it because they were paid a little extra, or because they're just plain stupid?

Armenian blogs have always been attentive towards Mass Media, although you can't really call it love, in part because there's not much to love in the Armenian Mass Media these days. As to the newly demonstrated love of the Armenia media towards Bloggers, Ahousekeeper has very rightly noted:

"Aravot" newspaper has discovered the Armenian Blogosphere. Talking to Uzogh, and later, searching through our journals, they have come to the conclusion, that Armenian Bloggers "don't like political games and disdain homosexuals". So now you know what questions journalists are most interested in, don't you?

( Read more... )And while some Bloggers appreciate the fact, that the Armenian media have finally entered the 21st century, others are wondering, why, of all issues discussed in the Blogosphere, the Aravot journalist had been so interested only in Bloggers' attitude towards homosexuals? At any rate, despite the strange conclusions made by the journalist and obviously "provocative" headline, it was a pretty good article, the Armenian News Blog has concluded. Let us remind once again, that A1+ and Radio Hay are the two media who love Bloggers more, and loved them earlier then others. Both of these media outlets already have set up their own blogs. A1+ blog is located at http://a1plus.blogsome.com, and Radio Hay blog is at http://www.radiohay.am.
Coming to the "reciprocal" love of Bloggers for the Armenian media, here's what we read on Ogostos's journal about ALM TV company - a TV company - widely regarded among the more educated young group of the population in Armenia, as a disgraceful TV channel, which could only be laughed at:

The "ALM" channel went on air on metric frequency, which means - it was broadcast all over Armenia.
A most incredible TV channel was thus created in the world. Different from all others. Television, who's owner has the right to do everything. He can broadcast 24 hours of a party held at the "ALM" for New year if he likes. Or, if he likes, he can show a boy singing 24 hours of traditional Yezidi songs. He can talk politics 24 hours in the most awkward key... if he likes. And if he likes, he can announce to the whole wide world "darned Yezdis, I invite them here to sing, and in return, they don't vote for me! this means, they won't sing on my channel any more!".

One more interesting Mass Media discussion was started on Uzogh's blog. The blogger had placed a news video from the Haylur news program of Public TV of Armenia, covering the recent pre-election meeting of Levon Ter-Petrossian with voters in the town of Talin, during which a man from the crowd was beaten up by the supporters of the presidential candidate, in response to his yell: "Talin people are not supporting you!".


The blogger had asked other Armenian Bloggers working in the sphere of media, what they thought about the news item, and whether it was ethical or no. In response, Mark Grigoryan had come up with a detailed analyses, pointing out that:

Generally speaking, the material could have been done much more professionally. I think, that the Public TV of Armenia, undoubtedly, should provide news coverage of much higher quality than that.

The other respondents to Uzogh's inquiry also noted, that the news item wasn't balanced enough.
To conclude, we can state, that while the Armenian Mass Media are just doing the first steps towards discovering the Armenian Blogosphere, the Bloggers, on the contrary, have been talking the crap out of the Armenian mass media for quite some time now, and looking at the current trends in pre-electoral media coverage in the country, looks like they'll have much more to dwell upon in the coming week or two.

Interesting development, although hardly anything will come out of this. At any rate, as ArmInfo reports, Levon Ter-Petrosyan's supporters have applied to the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) of Armenia to annul presidential candidate, Armenian Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan's registration. During his meeting with journalists at Hayatsk club, on Tuesday, the Press-secretary of the Armenian ex-president's campaign headquarters Arman Musinyan has also told the journalists, that the means being spent on the campaign by the candidate from power aren't evidently from Sargsyan's election campaign fund. If the CEC fails to annul Sargsyan's registration within 3 days, the oppositionists will apply to court "to acknowledge the inactivity" of the CEC. He added that numerous facts of violations of electoral legislation have already been presented to international observers.

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Last week I asked Kornelij Glas, as one of the most experienced Armenian Bloggers, to write his list of Top Ten Armenian blogs, with the intention of including the list and an interview with him in the Radio program about blogging that we are producing at Internews. And although making Top Tens turned out to be a risky and dangerous business, Kornelij Glas produced a Top, which is presented below:

1. 517design
2. ahousekeeper
3. Armenia Election Monitor 2008
4. Athanatoi
5. Вирабофф
6. Ditord
7. Марк Григорян
8. Tevyants
9. Us and Them in Post-Modernity
10. ՈՒզողի բլոգը

You would ask, why did it turn out to be a risky business? Well - because, Kornelij is a much more popular blogger then myself, so when I was making lists, nobody really cared, but once he did it, everybody started arguing, how come Kornelij hasn't included them in the list. So in response to all arguments, Kornelij Glas published another entry - his list of "Double Skulls", which instantly made into the Yandex Top of most discussed blog entries. So its not that bad, after all, I guess. Kornelij - sorry! I didn't mean to get you into so much trouble!

Interesting developments in the Armenian opposition camp:

First Levon Ter-Petrossian declared during his Vanadzor rally, that he had full-fledged reasons to state that Arthur Baghdasaryan and Raffi Hovhannisyan were going to join him.

Then, during his Yerevan rally, talking about the possibility to join the other oppositional candidates, Artur Baghdasaryan informed that negotiations were in process and declared, “Time and negotiations will show who is going to join but I think that today it will be an honor for any politician to join us and to join these thousands of people.” “Tomorrow Levon Ter-Petrossian and Raffi Hovhannisyan are going to join this gathering – all those people that want to live in a free, fair country. It is not important who will join whom. However, joining is very important,”

Following that, Raffi Hovhannisyan has said that Armenia needs a big and long-term unification, and not a short one. Heritage goes on communicating with all the four candidates, theoretically considering any option possible. The decision will be made by the party. “Our wish is that the main oppositional candidates should come out of the area of public speaking and be involved in rough, cold-blooded, serious judging that are going to be critical for Armenia,” Raffi Hovhannisyan has said. Heritage will express its final position on supporting a certain candidate by the end of the week.

Now one last thing - in his interview to Echannel.am, Vazgen Manukyan also was not excluding the possibility of forming a serious force with Raffi Hovhannisyan and Vahan Hovhannisyan. According to him, negotiations were going on around that unification. Yesterday it became clear that Vazgen Manukyan and Vahan Hovhannisyan were not going to get united, although, as Vazgen Manukyan put it, “No negotiations could be considered closed until February 9.”

Radio Hay radio-station, broadcast in Yerevan on 104.1, is getting really interested in blogging and Blogosphere. The radio company started out by broadcasting the radio program made by the Internews based on my article: "Levonator and Serzhadevil in Focus of Bloggers' Attention" last Saturday, January 26th, 2008. The second issue of the program will be broadcast on Saturday, February 2, 2008, based on the article: "Democracy is when idiots vote...", in their 11:00 o'clock program dedicated to the 2008 Presidential elections.

Radio Hay have also launched a blog - dedicated to the 2008 Presidential elections, featuring news, polls, a portfolio of documents related to elections, links to useful resources. As I'm closely involved with helping set-up this blog, you're welcome to submit any comments about it here, on this blog, or at the blog on Radio Hay server.

For broadcast frequencies of Radio Hay in other regions of Armenia check out the following list:

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This cartoon made my day today. Such an accurate depiction of Armenian print-media these days! Nothing to add :) Via Echannel.am.

For strange and mysterious reasons, despite years of existence of a very lively Armenian blogging community, the predominant languages of Armenian bloggers have been Russian and English, rather then native Armenian. The picture has started to change over the recent month however, a range of blogs writing in Armenian have sprang up, and one can now get a variety and diversity of opinion and information reading only Armenian language Armenian blogs. Needless to say, that I’m very happy to see such a development, and want to present here a number of links to some really excellent Armenian Language Blogs. Read them, comment them, encourage them:

• A1plus blog
• Armenian newspapers & magazines digest
• Artak Kirakosyan’s Blog
• F5blog - free flow of ideas and opinion
• Samvel Martirosyan’s Blog
• Vardan Jaloyan’s Blog
• The Official ICHD Blog
• Freedom Fighter
• One Day
• Local Life in Armenia

Originally posted at The Armenian Observer Blog