In Armenia domestic politics and foreign policy aspirations are closely interconnected and the most recent mayoral elections in Yerevan on May 31 were indicative of this.

Both in Armenia and abroad, political observers ascribed a broader significance to the Yerevan City Council elections. Free and fair elections would first and foremost have produced a new system of administration in the capital, marking the start of a new electoral/political culture and would have indicated serious progress towards reinforcement of democratic mechanisms in Armenia. Such elections could also have reduced the political tension that has exasperated political life in Armenia following the highly questionable presidential elections of February 2008, including the killing of peaceful demonstrators and the arrest of hundreds of opposition activists. Unfortunately, as local observers noticed, this opportunity was lost and the electoral system of Armenia was finally ruined after the May 31 vote. "We witnessed the most illegal, amoral and cynical elections in Armenia’s history" declared Amalia Kostanian, head of the local office of Transparency International in Yerevan.

The quantity and, perhaps more important, the quality of infringements achieved new heights; and unsystematic and fragmented attempts by the political opposition and civic activists to prevent or hinder such infringements were simply ineffective. The main opposition group, the Armenian National Congress (ANC) charged that the ruling regime not only used vast administrative and criminal resources (such as ballot stuffing, rigging in vote counting, violence against observers and journalists) but also implemented a very dangerous strategy of manipulating the fears and hardships of an economically traumatized population by the systematic buying of votes. In official results, the ANC was placed third following two pro-government lists and declined to take up the seats assigned to in the City Council, rejecting the results based on election fraud.

Interestingly, in this inequitable and decisive ‘battle for democracy’, the most dramatic role was again ascribed to the international community. The Congress of Local and Regional Authorities (CLRA) of the Council of Europe was the only international observation mission monitoring the municipal elections on May 31 in Yerevan. From May 3 to 6, a three-member CLRA pre-election mission visited the capital. The actual observation mission was organized from May 27 to June 1, including nine members of the Congress and three members of the European Union Committee of Regions, from the United Kingdom, San Marino, Poland, Italy, Hungary, France, Estonia and Belgium.

Despite the evident, openly executed, and serious violations, the initial assessment of this group regarding the conduct of elections was positive; their preliminary report asserted that with these elections, Armenia had proceeded toward the implementation of local democracy; that the overall organization of the elections had been broadly carried out in compliance with European standards, and that the May 31 elections had constituted a step forward compared to the local elections which took place in Yerevan in September 2008.As lragir.am, one of the most popular on-line newspapers commented, the conclusions of the European observers regarding the Yerevan Mayor Election deeply angered the Armenian people. The intention of the European observers to issue their final conclusion in October 2009 will likely provide further frustration. It is surprising to learn that the Europeans need five months to reach a final conclusion, the periodical continued. This means that they will continue engaging in politics as usual during these five months – the final result will be determined by their political and other interests and not by what they witnessed and learned in Yerevan on May 31, lragir.am concluded.

It seems that Armenia’s foreign policy is considered part of a bigger geopolitical plan at this point. As Philip Gordon, the new U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasian Affairs, stated during his official visit “I have only been in office for two weeks, but it seemed to me that there are such important and even historic developments going on in Armenia and the region that I should try to come out here as soon as possible.” According to official Armenian sources, Turkish-Armenian relations and the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict were high on the agenda during his Yerevan visit. During the follow-up news conference, Gordon reaffirmed Washington’s strong support for progress on both issues.

In the meantime, Gordon indicated that the U.S. does not consider the recent polls in Yerevan free and fair. “The results were only tallied up a couple of days ago, and so we don’t have a formal statement or judgment right now,” he said. “But I have heard reports of irregularities and problems with the election. That wasn’t up to the standard that we would like to see.”

Marie Yovanovitch, U.S. ambassador to Armenia, stated that a more detailed U.S. assessment of the polls based on the findings of U.S. Embassy observers will be released shortly. “We saw a number of instances of irregularities, fraud, and intimidation not only in one or two districts but throughout the city during voting and also during the count,” she said.

One could easily notice that Washington’s stance is more promising and honest. But while criticizing official Yerevan and suspending U.S. economic assistance (under the Millennium Challenge Account program) due to the country’s poor record on democracy and human rights, the U.S. continues to talk to the regime on the two most critical foreign policy issues and hoping for solutions from it. This paradox has led many to conclude that the regime has made or is making otherwise unacceptable concessions on these issues in return for acceptance of the regime and its widely undemocratic domestic policies. The West and the international community seem to face a choice here: Either continuing the push for geopolitical interests through endorsing illegitimate and repressive regimes, a scheme that has brought no results as yet; or to support the promise of a liberal democracy representing pro-democracy forces in general that is more likely to produce solutions to the larger issues that can be supported by the people and have enduring impact.