South Caucasus Leaders prefer Power Concentration
Approximately in one year all three southern Caucasus states will have the parliamentary and presidential elections. Presidents of all the three states have already started preparations and keep introducing various changes in their legislation and constitutions to prolong life of their regimes. But in parallel to these processes, opposition forces are being united in the countries. They demand unconditional resignation of the presidents and count on decisive victory on the background of extreme unpopularity of the rulers.
Armenian president Robert Kocharyan started facing problems earlier than two other presidents. After a tragic shooting in the National Assembly of Armenia (the Parliament) in 1999, when group of armed men killed Chairman Demirjyan and Defense Minister Sarkisyan, the opposition and media blamed President because of his well known confrontation with these two.
Accusation against Kocharyan intensified even further this summer, when the opposition forces in the Parliament demanded his impeachment. Now the president was also blamed for corruption, violation of the freedom of speech and selling state property to Russia for almost no price to repay the debts.
“Kocharyan’s resignation is a political necessity today”- Albert Bazeyan, leader of a powerful Republican Party, has stated.
Kocharyan applied to counter measures as the opposition grew stronger and suggested the Parliament amendments to the election code. President’s proposal caused major discord in the National Assembly. But, finally, President’s initiative entered into force on August 1. The amendments increased number of MPs, elected as independent candidates, from 37 to 56 and reduced seats for proportionally elected MPs from 94 to 75. Experts say, it is much more easier to forge elections of independent candidates. The mentioned changes mean that Kocharyan “will appoint almost half of the Parliament according to his preferences”.
Besides, number of the Central Election Commission members and rules of their appointment have been changed as well. Now the Commission has 9 members instead of 13. 3 of them are directly appointed by the President, other six – by six factions that currently exist in the National Assembly.
Three parliamentary factions support the President and thus Kocharyan will have full control over the CEC. Experts assume that control over the CEC and increased number of majoritarian MPs will grant Kocharyan almost unlimited power and defeating him in the elections would be very difficult even for the united opposition.
It is quite curious that Heidar Aliev decided to follow the Armenian scenario. Azeri President appointed August 24 a day of referendum, which will decide whether 25 constitutional changes will be adopted. Like Armenians, Azeris also plan increasing a number of independent candidates’ seats, and most important of all – now the Prime Minister will replace the President if the latter will become incapable for fulfilling his duties instead of the Parliamentary Chairman as it is defined by present Constitution.
Local and foreign experts have no doubt that after the Parliamentary elections the president will appoint his son Ilham Aliev as the Prime Minister and then steps down from the presidency to transfer power to his son legally.
These amendments are a reason of major upset of the opposition forces. 30 political parties now are going to unite to boycott the referendum.
The Council of Europe promptly reacted on Aliev’s initiative. Andreas Gross, member of the Monitoring Board of the CoE Parliamentary Assembly, called Aliev’s initiative an “unprecedented case in the world”. The US Department of State advised Aliev to postpone the referendum one more month to give the society enough time for discussing the suggested amendments. Despite the international pressure, Aliev is not going to change his decision.
The Georgian President’s situation is much harder compared with his neighbor colleagues. Civil society is more developed in Georgia and media is more liberal. Besides this, President’s supporting political forces are counterweighted with several powerful political unions that are capable of confronting the government and gaining people’s support. Local elections on 2 of June and recent unification of the opposition parties against criminalization of authority has proved this.
This explains why all of the Parliamentary factions rejected constitutional amendments suggested by the President almost a year ago. From the first glance, President has considered strong demands of the opposition and agreed on introducing Prime Minister’s post, but still kept the right to dismiss the Parliament in case of any dispute with the executive branch.
Taking in to account current political situation, Shevardnadze chose another tactic: revival of almost dissolved nomenklatura-type Citizens Union Party and pushing of idea of possible destabilization in the country and that he is the only one, who will be able to lead the country through it.
Talks about successors of the current presidents started after the last elections. There are two main reasons to this: state-building in the southern Caucasus are generally associated with the Presidents, particularly in Georgian and Azeri cases, where former First Secretaries of the Communist Party Shevardnadze and Aliev created perspective of building a statehood in the countries, entangled in the wars and chaos. Armenian President Robert Kocharyan is a Karabakh war hero; thus, he enjoyed great respect in the country.
Many in the region and outside believe that due to the weak state institutions and lack of democratic traditions transfer of power may result in disorders and civil confrontation in these underdeveloped countries. Therefore concerned groups and states start caring about creation of favorable conditions for victory of desirable candidates beforehand.
Another set of reasons why the question of early resignation of the active presidents raised is slow rate of economic growth and immense scale of corruption in all three countries, plus unresolved conflicts in the region.
It is remarkable that until now the governments of the three states were managing to find a common language with the opposition or cause confrontations within these forces to enable presidents to continue controlling the political processes. However, continuos economic problems and human rights violations finally led to extreme dissatisfaction of the societies.
Against this background, the ruling regimes do not see other ways of improving their images other than open offence against their opponents. On the other hand the opposition forces feel that they can achieve much better results and this gives them incentive to unite and continue confrontation with the government.
Now it is up to opposition forces and consciousness of the civil societies to avoid emergence of the classic authoritarian regimes and initiate necessary reforms for democratic development.
By Revaz Bakhtadze, Civil Georgia
