#19 - RW 279
RFE/RL Newsline
October 23, 2003
REALPOLITIK TAKES PRECEDENCE OVER DEMOCRATIZATION IN THE SOUTH CAUCASUS
By Emil Danielyan
Copyright (c) 2003. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org

Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia were issued with a stark warning by Council of Europe Secretary-General Walter Schwimmer in Strasbourg on 29 January. "I cannot imagine what the consequences would be with regard to the position of these countries in the Council of Europe if their elections are not conducted in a free and fair way," Schwimmer said ahead of this year's presidential and parliamentary polls in the three South Caucasus states. However, the United States and Europe have done little to give teeth to their periodic appeals to the governments of the three countries to ensure that elections are free, fair, and transparent.

On the contrary, nine months after Schwimmer's warning, the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan are reaping the benefits of the West's reluctance to push more energetically for swifter democratization in the South Caucasus, a reluctance that is in stark contrast to the pressure exerted by the West on Belarus and former Yugoslavia.

In the intervening period, Armenia and Azerbaijan have held presidential ballots -- Armenia in February-March and Azerbaijan last week -- that have elevated the region's post-Soviet vote-rigging culture to new heights. But neither president is facing any repercussions that could threaten his grip on power either in the Council of Europe or in any other Western structure into which both countries have been trying to integrate. Their counterpart in neighboring Georgia is surely taking note of that as he prepares to hold crucial legislative elections there next month.

The West has effectively legitimized the official results of the elections in Armenia and Azerbaijan, both of which were marred by reports of widespread, serious fraud. Monitoring missions from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) criticized both ballots in very similarly worded statements, as falling short of international standards. Yet Washington nonetheless affirmed its readiness "to work with" Armenian President Robert Kocharian and Azerbaijani President-elect Ilham Aliyev.

The United States seems to be getting tougher on Georgia, having recently forced President Eduard Shevardnadze to accept a strong opposition presence in election commissions. But it is highly doubtful that Shevardnadze, a long-time darling of the West, will face U.S. ostracism if the 2 November Georgian elections too go awry.

The Council of Europe, which admitted Armenia and Azerbaijan in January 2001, was equally critical of the elections, but failed to move from verbal condemnation to concrete sanctions. The organization's Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) moved to censure Armenia following the May parliamentary polls, but retracted that threat in September after Yerevan fully abolished the death penalty during times of peace. Similarly, the PACE has for months threatened to sanction Azerbaijan for holding political prisoners, but twice postponed punitive action this year.

In some respects, the three Caucasian states are now less democratic than they were before joining the Council of Europe. Kocharian, for example, shut down Armenia's leading independent television station in April 2002, while Azerbaijan has just formalized the first dynastic transfer of power in the former Soviet Union. In Georgia, the presidential election in 2000 was deemed less democratic by international observers than polls held in the 1990s.

Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia have felt practically no pressure for democratization from the European Union, which continues to allocate tens of millions of dollars for regional aid programs. None of the three countries will be seriously considered for EU membership in the foreseeable future. This might be explained by the fact that the EU is concentrating its efforts on promoting political reform in those Eastern and Central European states that will join it in the coming years. Besides, some European powers, notably France, are pursuing their own, separate agenda in the South Caucasus. French President Jacques Chirac was the first -- and perhaps the only -- European leader to congratulate Kocharian and Aliyev on their disputed victories.

All three South Caucasus states cooperate with the United States in its global fight against terrorism, and all backed, to varying degrees, its military occupation of Iraq. Of more immediate importance, the United States is keenly interested in a quick settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, partly in order to undercut Russian influence in the region and to ensure the successful implementation of multibillion-dollar Western oil projects in Azerbaijan.

The apparent U.S. thinking is that internationally isolated regimes in Baku and Yerevan would be unable or unwilling to agree to a compromise solution to the Karabakh conflict at a time when the OSCE Minsk Group is preparing to make a fresh bid for peace. The problem is, however, that neither government enjoys the domestic legitimacy necessary for making painful concessions on Karabakh. Aliyev and Kocharian might not feel secure enough to embrace a peace accord that could be easily exploited by their political opponents and rejected by powerful government factions that helped them cling to power. They both must remember the fate of Armenia's former President Levon Ter-Petrossian who in February 1998, 16 months after his fraudulent re-election, was forced to resign by his key ministers -- including Kocharian -- after advocating acceptance of a Western-backed accord on Karabakh.

If either country does not like a particular Karabakh peace plan, it can always count on Russia's secret support for rejecting it. It is no wonder that Russian President Vladimir Putin was quick to endorse the election outcomes in both Armenia and Azerbaijan.

But by avoiding deeper involvement in the democratization of the South Caucasus, the West risks perpetuating the very status quo that it has been unsuccessfully trying to change. To hope that the countries of the region will gradually transform into liberal democracies with a bit of Western encouragement is utopian and naive. Failure unequivocally to condemn a burgeoning tradition of rigging elections will only serve to fuel long-term political instability, and make such fraud increasingly difficult to eradicate.

Emil Danielyan is an RFE/RL correspondent based in Yerevan.