1996 Armenian presidential election

Presidential elections were held in Armenia on 22 September 1996. The result was a victory for Levon Ter-Petrosyan, who received 51% of the vote. Turnout was 60%.

Background
The 1996 presidential election was the second presidential election after Armenia's independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. On 18 September 1996, few days before the election, the influential defense minister Vazgen Sargsyan stated that he is "satisfied with the situation." Addressing Ter-Petrosyan's supporters, he proclaimed that Armenia "will enter the 21st century victoriously and stable with Ter-Petrosyan." The opposition parties (Armenian Revolutionary Federation, Paruyr Hayrikyan's Union for National Self-Determination, Aram Sargsyan's Democratic Party) consolidated around the former Karabakh Committee member and former prime minister Vazgen Manukyan.

Conduct
Observation and monitoring organizations were mostly critical of the conduct of the elections. The OSCE observation mission found "serious violations of the election law."

Results
Following the elections, both Ter-Petrosyan and Manukyan claimed victory. Official results by the Central Electoral Commission recorded Ter-Petrosyan's victory in the first round with just above 50% of the total vote in favor of the incumbent.

Analysis
Hrant Mikayelian, researcher at the Caucasus Institute, noted that in precincts where turnout was lower than 64% Manukyan received 49.6% of the votes, while Ter-Petrosyan received 41.1%. Mikayelian notes that while it is clear that widespread falsifications took place, it is impossible to say with certainty that Manukyan actually received over 50% of the votes in the first round.

Protests and aftermath


The leading opposition candidate Vazgen Manukyan officially received 41% of the vote. Claiming electoral fraud by the incumbent Ter-Petrosyan, Manukyan and his supporters began mass demonstrations in the afternoon of 23 September. An estimated of 200,000 people gathered in Freedom Square to protest the election results. On 25 September, 150,000 to 200,000 of gathered in the same square in support of Manukyan. Manukyan led the demonstrators to Baghramyan Avenue, where the parliament building is located (the Electoral Commission was inside the building at the time). Later during the day, the protesters broke the fence surrounding the Armenian parliament and got into the building. They beat up the parliament speaker Babken Ararktsyan and vice-speaker Ara Sahakyan. The security forces were brought into Yerevan to restore order. On the same day, Defense Minister Vazgen Sargsyan stated that "even if they [the opposition] win 100 percent of the votes, neither the Army nor the National Security and Interior Ministry would recognize such political leaders." Sargsyan was later criticized by the West for this statement. Vazgen Sargsyan and Minister of National Security Serzh Sargsyan announced on public television that their respective agencies have prevented an attempted coup d'état. The government sent tanks and troops to Yerevan to enforce the ban on rallies and demonstrations on 26 September 1996. A number of opposition parliamentarians were stripped of legal immunity. Manukyan appealed to the Constitutional Court with a request for a new election, but it was rejected.

Later developments
In December 1998, Vano Siradeghyan, one of Ter-Petrosyan's closest allies and interior minister at the time of the 1996 election, claimed in an interview that Ter-Petrosyan fell into a three-month depression following the election and wanted him and Vazgen Sargsyan to resign. According to Siradeghyan, "the whole state apparatus was demoralized, paralyzed and no government was formed during [the ensuing] three months." Siradeghyan also appeared to admit that government had resorted to vote-rigging to secure Ter-Petrosyan's victory without a runoff election. Siradeghyan left the position of interior minister in November 1996 and was appointed mayor of Yerevan, while Vazgen Sargsyan remained as defense minister after the election, despite rumors that he was to resign.

From 1995 until his resignation in February 1998, Ter-Petrosyan was criticized for his alleged authoritarian rule. History Professor Stephan H. Astourian of the University of California, Berkeley suggests that after crushing popular protest by "military force, legal recourse had been perverted, and a president had been elected fraudulently." Astourian claims that the elections "tarnished Ter-Petrosian's image, but the West did not dwell on the problem" as "a weak president has his uses." The West increased the pressure on the non-democratically elected president on the Karabakh issue. Astourian believes that "even more than his image in the West, it was the president's own self-image, his 'ego ideal,' that was tarnished."