In 2008, Ter-Petrossian Asked US to Put Pressure on Authorities, But US Didn’t Want to Get Involved

In a Feb. 21, 2008 confidential diplomatic cable sent to the US Department of State, then US Charges d’Affaires in Yerevan Joseph Pennington states that Levon Zurabyan, adviser to presidential candidate Levon Ter-Petrossian, requested an urgent meeting with US embassy officials in which he passed a note that he said was directly from Ter-Petrossian (LTP).

 

“Aside from handing over the note, Zurabyan made two points orally. First, that the campaign had information that authorities would disrupt the LTP rally planned for 15:00 local that same day. Second, he alleged that the authorities had deliberately left open the possibility of modifying the published results, such that PM [Serzh] Sargsyan’s results would fall under the 50 percent threshold, and thus send the election to a second round. He said they had done this by leaving some precinct results unverified. (COMMENT: He was not entirely specific on this point, and we have no independent evidence that this may be the case. However, we understand that something much like this happened during one of President Kocharian’s two elections, in which authorities backed away from an early announcement of an absolute majority, to announced revised figures below 50 percent, in the face of popular protests. END COMMENT), ” writes Pennington.

 

Zurabyan asserted that some 400 LTP candidate proxies or commission members had been assaulted and ejected from polling places on election day and noted that Ter-Petrossian rightfully won the election — “not necessarily a majority but a plurality.”

 

The US diplomat then asked Zurabyan about planned marches to foreign embassies based on a rumour the embassy had heard. Zurabyan said there was talk of marching to the French embassy in protest over French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s prompt congratulations message to Sargsyan. Pennington urged all actions to be peaceful; Zurabyan reaffirmed this was their plan, but expressed concern that “authorities would intervene forcefully.”

 

The cable also includes the full text of Ter-Petrossian’s note, which is as follows:

 

“The people are angry. They push us to resort to decisive actions. We want to keep the movement within the legal framework and we are intent to continue that way. However, doing so seems to be difficult, at some point the situation may go out of control.

 

“The only way out is the second round in the presidential elections. This will allow keeping the people’s movement within constitutional confines.

 

“Our request is: to put pressure on the authorities to go this way. Also, to put pressure on them not to disrupt our peaceful manifestations, demonstrations and marches. They will not be able to reject your pressure.”

 

The US diplomat concludes by saying the embassy has “no wish to be drawn into the domestic political situation, but it is evident that LTP hopes for exactly that. Whatever public statement we make is likely to be seized upon by one side or the other, either to validate the outcome or to indict it. We see no alternative, however, but to continue to evaluate this election as objectively as we can, and letting that analysis guide our public statements.”