Armine Udumyan

The Communist Party of Armenia (CPA) is campaigning out of journalists' sight. According to their headquarters, the Communist leaders are visiting the marzes (provinces) and meeting with voters, but no one knows why they don’t let journalists in on the schedule of their visits. “It’s probably Comrade Sahakyan’s fault,” was the only explanation. Comrade Sahakyan, the campaign manager, is the second secretary of the central committee of the CPA, Sanatruk Sahakyan. One reason may be their tight financial situation. Vladimir Darbinyan, the first secretary of the central committee of the CPA, once told us: “We have only two cars. The secretaries of the central committee have been going to the marzes, meeting the people. We’re getting by.”

Presumably, it’s not only that they are avoiding comparison with the luxurious campaigns of other parties, but they also don’t want unpleasant surprises to visible -- for example, that the number of their supporters has decreased. Generally, from the point of view of campaign effectiveness, the CPA’s only successful event in this race was the march they organized on May Day, when they brought in supporters from almost all the marzes ofArmenia. In their assessment, 20,000 people took part in the action, but this number should be taken with a grain of salt. A great many of the participants were young Pioneers, who may perhaps vote for the CPA some ten years from now. One striking thing about the CPA is its disciplined supporters. Everyone we talked to described the advantages of Communists with confidence, saying thing like, “The Communist Party will bring about a radiant future.” The marchers were, in fact, indignant that not all the residents of the capital had joined them: “Oh, those Yerevantsis, they look at us from above, they don’t join in,” and “It is not right - weren’t they formed and fed under this party?”

They were not as successful on Victory Day, May 9th, although the Communist bosses had planned a political action. That day it was hard to find Communist supporters inVictoryPark. On the contrary, people would ask, “Does it matter what party we are from?” although it was the first time other parties had come to pay tribute to the memory of war victims in such an organized way -- another campaign show.

For many of those gathered there, the question “What party are you from?” was enough to start an argument. Before this question was asked, Communist Seda Sevoyan, People’s Party ofArmeniamember Rima Hakobyan, and a Dashnak woman whose name we were unable to find out because the discussion was already raging, had been calmly sitting next to each other. When Seda Sevoyan said, “I am a Communist and will remain a Communist,” the Dashnak responded with criticism of the CPA: “The Communists did not fight till the end even though all the other parties wanted to put the Fatherland on its feet!” PPA member Rima Hakobyan didn’t like this point and called upon her neighbor not to talk on everybody’s behalf: “Not everybody was fighting, especially not the Dashnaks, who sold the country in 1918-1920. And now there are Dashnaks in all the election commissions. They doing everything they can to win the elections, but they won’t succeed.”

We can’t publish the rest of their conversation for reasons you may imagine. Another woman there, Angela Kartchikyan, is disappointed in all the parties: “I see that the former cleanness and fairness doesn’t exist anymore. Even within the Communists.”

Communist believers spoke to us from the position of the radical opposition, although many people think that the CPA secretly supports the government.