Presidential elections were held in
Armenia
Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of West Asia. It is a part of the Caucasus region and is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia (country), Georgia to the north and Azerbaijan to ...
on 19 February and 5 March 2003. No candidate received a majority in the first round of the election with the
incumbent
The incumbent is the current holder of an office or position. In an election, the incumbent is the person holding or acting in the position that is up for election, regardless of whether they are seeking re-election.
There may or may not be ...
President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
* President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Film and television
*'' Præsident ...
Robert Kocharyan
Robert Sedraki Kocharyan ( ; born 31 August 1954) is an Armenian politician. He served as the President of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic from 1994 to 1997 and Prime Minister of Nagorno-Karabakh from 1992 to 1994. He served as the second Presiden ...
winning slightly under 50% of the vote. Therefore, a second round was held and Kocharyan defeated
Stepan Demirchyan
Stepan Kareni Demirchyan (; born June 7, 1959) is an Armenian politician and son of the Communist-era Armenian leader Karen Demirchyan.
Biography
Stepan Demirchyan was born in Yerevan and received his degree from Yerevan Polytechnic Institute ...
with official results showed him winning just over 67% of the vote. However, both the opposition and international observers said that the election had seen significant amounts of
electoral fraud
Electoral fraud, sometimes referred to as election manipulation, voter fraud, or vote rigging, involves illegal interference with the process of an election, either by increasing the vote share of a favored candidate, depressing the vote share o ...
and the opposition did not recognise the results of the election.
Background
Robert Kocharyan had been elected president in the
1998 presidential election defeating
Karen Demirchyan
Karen Serobi Demirchyan (; 17 April 1932 – 27 October 1999) was a Soviet and Armenian politician who served as President of the National Assembly in 1999 until he was killed in the Armenian parliament shooting. He had been also the First Sec ...
. The election had been held when
Levon Ter-Petrossian was forced to resign as President after agreeing to a plan to resolve the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is an ethnic and territorial conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, inhabited mostly by ethnic Armenians until 2023, and seven surrounding districts, inhabited mostly by Azerbai ...
, which his ministers, including Kocharyan, had refused to accept.
On the 7 August 2002 the
Central Electoral Commission of Armenia announced that the presidential election would be held on the 19 February 2003,
with nominations required by 6 December 2002.
Candidates had to supply 40,000 signatures of support in order to be able to stand in the election.
President Kocharyan had already announced that he would be running for re-election and the opposition parties attempted to agree on a united candidate to oppose him but were unsuccessful.
[ Former President Levon Ter-Petrossian also contemplated running in the election but ultimately decided not to stand.][
]
First round
15 people announced that they would stand in election, but in the end 9 candidates
A candidate, or nominee, is a prospective recipient of an award or honor, or a person seeking or being considered for some kind of position. For example, one can be a candidate for membership in a group or election to an office, in which case a ...
stood in the first round of the presidential election. Reporting in the media was seen as being one-sided, with a media monitoring organisation saying that President Kocharyan received about five times as much coverage during the campaign as all the other eight candidates combined. Kocharyan campaigned on the record of economic growth during his presidency and got support from several political parties, while his campaign was run by the defence minister Serzh Sargsyan
Serzh Azati Sargsyan (, ; born 30 June 1954)[Official biography of Serzh Sargsyan](_blank)
. Kocharyan's leading opponent was Stepan Demirchyan
Stepan Kareni Demirchyan (; born June 7, 1959) is an Armenian politician and son of the Communist-era Armenian leader Karen Demirchyan.
Biography
Stepan Demirchyan was born in Yerevan and received his degree from Yerevan Polytechnic Institute ...
, the leader of the People's Party of Armenia
The People's Party of Armenia (Armenian: Հայաստանի Ժողովրդական Կուսակցություն, ''Hayastani Zhoghovrdakan Kusaktsutyun'') is a socialist political party in Armenia.
History
The party nominated Karen Demirchyan ...
and the son of Karen Demirchyan, a former Soviet
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
leader of Armenia and speaker of the Armenian parliament who had been assassinated in 1999.[ Demirchyan ran in the election as an anti-corruption candidate.] The other leading candidate was Artashes Geghamyan
Artashes Geghamyan (, ; 2 December 1949 – 20 September 2024) was an Armenian politician.
Biography
Geghamyan was born in Yerevan. He finished Chekhov Secondary School in 1966 and graduated from the Yerevan Polytechnic Institute in 1971. He j ...
a former mayor of Yerevan
Yerevan ( , , ; ; sometimes spelled Erevan) is the capital and largest city of Armenia, as well as one of the world's List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities. Situated along the Hrazdan River, Yerev ...
, from the National Unity party.[
]Opinion poll
An opinion poll, often simply referred to as a survey or a poll, is a human research survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions of a population by conducting a series of qu ...
s in the run up to the election showed President Kocharyan as likely to win the 50% required in order to avoid a second round. Early results showed Kocharyan winning over half of the vote,[ but the final results of the first round showed that he had just failed to meet that target and so was forced into a second round against Stepan Demirchyan.] This was first time any incumbent president in the Commonwealth of Independent States
The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) is a regional organization, regional intergovernmental organization in Eurasia. It was formed following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. It covers an ar ...
had failed to win in the first round of an election.
See-through ballot box
A ballot box is a temporarily sealed container, usually a square box though sometimes a tamper resistant bag, with a narrow slot in the top sufficient to accept a ballot paper in an election but which prevents anyone from accessing the votes cas ...
es were used to try to minimise any fraud in the election.[ However, the ]Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is a regional security-oriented intergovernmental organization comprising member states in Europe, North America, and Asia. Its mandate includes issues such as arms control, the p ...
(OSCE), which had sent 200 election monitors to observe the election, described the lead up to the election as having "fell short of international standards in several key respects".[ Opposition observers at ]polling station
A polling place is where voters cast their ballots in elections. The phrase polling station is also used in American English, British English and Canadian English although a polling place is the building and polling station is the specific ...
s reported that ballot stuffing in favour of President Kocharyan had taken place and one member of the OSCE observers was reported as having described the election as "a disaster".[
]
Second round
Some opposition supporters called on Demirchyan to boycott the second round but, despite taking part in protests over the conduct of the first round, he did participate in the election.[ Most of the opposition parties rallied behind Demirchyan in the election and a television debate took place between the two candidates.] Kocharyan called on voters in the second round to give him "a convincing victory that no-one can question". The official results saw President Kocharyan winning just over two thirds of vote in the second round and thus he was re-elected.
As in the first round the OSCE reported significant amounts of electoral fraud
Electoral fraud, sometimes referred to as election manipulation, voter fraud, or vote rigging, involves illegal interference with the process of an election, either by increasing the vote share of a favored candidate, depressing the vote share o ...
and numerous supporters of Demirchyan were arrested before the second round took place.[ Demirchyan described the election as having been rigged and called on his supporters to rally against the results.] Tens of thousands of Armenians protested in the days after the election against the results and called on President Kocharyan to step down.[ However, Kocharyn was sworn in for a second term in early April and the ]Constitutional Court
A constitutional court is a high court that deals primarily with constitutional law. Its main authority is to rule on whether laws that are challenged are in fact unconstitutional, i.e. whether they conflict with constitutionally established ru ...
upheld the election, while recommending that a referendum
A referendum, plebiscite, or ballot measure is a Direct democracy, direct vote by the Constituency, electorate (rather than their Representative democracy, representatives) on a proposal, law, or political issue. A referendum may be either bin ...
be held within a year to confirm the election result.
Results
Analysis
Hrant Mikayelian, researcher at the Caucasus Institute, noted that while falsifications during the election were significant and widespread, Kocharyan would have still won it in the second round, but at a far smaller margin.
See also
*2008 Armenian presidential election protests
A series of anti-government riots took place in Armenia following 2008 Armenian presidential election, presidential elections held on 19 February 2008. Protests broke out in the Armenian capital Yerevan, organized by supporters of presidential ...
* 2011 Armenian protests
* 2013 Armenian protests
References
External links
2003թ. նախագահական ընտրությունները
Internews Armenia
Ապրիլի 12. 2004թ
A1plus
{{Armenian presidential elections
Armenia
Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of West Asia. It is a part of the Caucasus region and is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia (country), Georgia to the north and Azerbaijan to ...
Presidential elections in Armenia
presidential election
A presidential election is the election of any head of state whose official title is President.
Elections by country
Albania
The president of Albania is elected by the Assembly of Albania who are elected by the Albanian public.
Chile
The p ...
Human rights in Armenia
2003 protests
2004 protests
2000s in Armenian politics