By Armen Ayvazyan | April 15, 2013 | 12:00 AM
Source: Harvard International Review

2013 (Re)Election Results in Armenia

Since regaining independence in 1991, Armenia’s presidential elections have been marred by fraud, while the incumbent political authorities have consistently been able to reestablish themselves. Massive post-election protests took place after the presidential elections in 1996, 2003, and 2008. In 2013, the country found itself in a similar situation. With over 58 percent of the votes, the incumbent, President Serzh Sargsyan, was declared the winner, while Raffi Hovannisian, the leader of the Heritage Party, received about 37 percent of the vote.

Unique to the 2013 elections was that they were likely manipulated before the formal start of the campaign, as all major opposition political parties ultimately sat out of the elections. Not only did the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP), the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), and the opposition bloc Armenian National Congress (ANC) refuse to nominate or support any candidate, but they also relinquished their organizational capabilities for monitoring the electoral process. Moreover, these parties did not call for elections boycott per se, even though they expressed distrust in the existing democratic mechanisms for regime change. Since 1991, behind-the-scenes bargaining between the government and the oppositional political forces has given rise to a loss of public trust in Armenia’s political institutions.

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