Epress.am News from Armenia
Ex-president Levon Ter-Petrossian (LTP) and president-elect Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan held competing rallies blocks away from each other in downtown Yerevan the afternoon of Feb. 26, 2008, writes then US Charges d’Affaires in Yerevan Joseph Pennington in a Feb. 28, 2008 confidential embassy cable recently made public by WikiLeaks.
“While Sargsyan’s first post-election rally drew approximately 60,000 to 70,000 bussed-in supporters, LTP’s seventh post-election rally in as many days drew 85,000 to 100,000, his largest so far. Thousands of Sargsyan participants later defected to LTP’s rally up the street, where they were rapturously received with chants of “Unite, Unite.” Some of the bussed-in Sargsyan supporters who joined the LTP rally appeared visibly dazed by the magnitude of LTP’s support, which, because of a virtual media blackout, has been grossly misportrayed by national media.
“Supporters at Sargsyan’s rally appeared to be mainly middle-aged men and women, with virtually no youth in sight. Banners at the rally showed people had come from the outlying regions of Yerevan, though one group Emboffs [embassy officials or officers] spoke with had come all the way from Javakheti, Georgia. In a scene reminiscent of mass mobilizations during the Soviet era, banner slogans read ‘Farmers for Serzh,’ ‘Doctors for Serzh,’ and even ‘Tuberculosis Polyclinic Employees for Serzh.’
“People whom Emboffs surveyed at the rally responded differently on the reason for their attendance, depending on how Emboffs identified themselves (either from the US Embassy or simply from America). People who knew they were talking to diplomats said they came willingly to the rally, ‘to defend their vote’ for Sargsyan and paid their own way to Yerevan. One group of women told Emboffs ‘to mind their own business’ when asked why they came to the rally, barking at the female FSN translator, ‘Why did YOU come?’ On the other hand, most men and women who were speaking to Americans said they were obliged to attend the rally by their supervisors and had been bussed to the event,” writes Pennington.
The US diplomat then notes that embassy officials timed the departure of participants at Sargsyan’s rally once he concluded his 30-minute speech:
“Within the space of eight minutes, approximately 95 percent of the approximately 60,000-70,000 crowd bolted the rain-drizzled square for their waiting buses and rides home. Only 2,000 held on in the drizzling rain, kept there by popular Armenian pop stars who took the stage after the Prime Minister. A bemused bystander approached Emboffs, and when Emboff asked him why he was grinning, he incredulously noted, ‘Did you see that — how fast everyone left the square?'”
As for Ter-Petrossian’s rally, Pennington notes this was by the strongest yet — exceeding his Feb. 17 pre-election rally at Liberty (Freedom) Square. In terms of demographics, Pennington cites embassy officials who say they noticed a “greater number of people” from the regions, from both southern and northern Armenia, and noticeably younger demographic, but with many middle-aged people also participating.
Prior to the rally, embassy officials visited two university campuses to investigate reports of riot police being stationed outside to deter student participation in Ter-Petrossian’s rally.
“Both campuses had approximately 10-20 riot and regular police outside, with numerous police vehicles parked in the street. When queried by Emboffs at Yerevan State University’s (YSU) main campus why they were there, police — including ranking officers — refused to make a statement, walked away from Emboffs, and acted as if nobody had addressed them. A police officer at a YSU affiliate down the street said they had been dispatched to “preserve order.” A student at the scene said police had arrived the day before, had engaged with students and told them not to attend the rally, but were overall non-aggressive,” reads the cable.
Several businessmen participating in Ter-Petrossian’s rally who were members of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation-Dashnaktsutyun (ARF-D) told embassy officials that the “‘dirty’ presidential election was to blame for the protest. They also said they thought the OSCE’s quick rush to recognize the election results had contributed to people’s dissatisfaction with the situation, and actually contributed to the ongoing protests.”
In his concluding comments, Pennington notes that if Sargsyan’s goal was to “offset” the ongoing Ter-Petrossian rallies with “a show of force of his own, he outright failed. In fact, it appears he did himself more ill than good, giving LTP and their diehard 30,000 cadre a new influx of thousands of jaded, would-be Sargsyan supporters bussed into Yerevan by the ruling regime itself. Where previous LTP rallies appeared to be stagnating in terms of number of supporters, today’s lopsided duel with Sargsyan’s contrived event appears to have given the LTP campaign a much-needed infusion of energy, regional support, and new credibility with the Armenian street. It remains to be seen, though, how LTP will exploit this showdown, and how Sargsyan will react to arguably the greatest PR mistake of the increasingly tense post-election period. Within a matter of hours, today’s dueling rallies visibly jeopardized Sargsyan’s cultivated image of invincibility.”