WikiLeaks-Armenia No 68
2007-09-14
SUBJECT: READING THE TEA LEAVES — AN INSIDER’S TAKE ON RULING PARTY PERSONALITIES AND INTENTIONS
Classified By: CDA R.V. Perina, reasons 1.4 (b, d)
¶1. (C) SUMMARY: Halfway out the door, a government insider offered a behind the scenes peek into the jockeying now underway among ruling elites to secure their places in the presumed Serzh Sargsian presidency. The leading candidates for prime minister: current DPM Hovannes Abrahamian, former PM and current London-based businessman Armen Sargsian, and Central Bank chairman Tigran Sargsian. Reputedly already agreed is that Kocharian’s current chief of staff, Armen Gevorgian, will become deputy prime minister, representing Kocharian’s finger in the new cabinet. The longer-than-expected time it took to form a cabinet was the result of sharp disagreements within the Republican Party about whom to appoint, with Serzh reportedly favoring a more inclusive, non-partisan approach, while the old-line party stalwarts demanded the spoils for their own. END SUMMARY.
¶2. (S) THE OUTSIDER INSIDE: Emboffs recently hosted Deputy Minister of Finance and Economy David Avetissian (protect) to a private lunch, and were treated to a frank update of intra-regime manuevering in the run-up to the widely-presumed Serzh Sargsian presidency after February 2008. Avetissian is young (about 35), talented, ambitious, very smart, sometimes prickly, and rather egotistical. He has risen fast by dint of hard work, competence, and talent, married to a good measure of political savvy, though he is not overtly partisan. However, his career to date has been hitched to a now-fading star (Finance Minister Khachatrian), and he has just about decided to pursue a doctorate abroad as a gambit to escape the Armenian political scene for a few years, with hopes to re-enter some time down the road. In the mood to shake the dust of Yerevan’s dirty politics from his sandals, Avetissian was happy to share his candid views of his colleagues and political masters. Avetissian is strongly pro-U.S. and has been a close and longstanding embassy contact.
¶3. (S) THE PRIME MINISTER CANDIDATES: Avetissian told us there was a behind-the-scenes struggle going on for who would become Prime Minister once Serzh Sargsian becomes president. The possible candidates, in a sense, have become proxy symbols of the struggle for dominance within ruling circles:
— HOVANNES “HOVIK” ABRAHAMIAN: The favorite and President Kocharian’s preferred candidate for the premiership is Hovik Abrahamian, currently the deputy prime minister and minister of Territorial Administration. Abrahamian is Kocharian’s man, and a long-time stalwart of the Republican Party.
(COMMENT: In the latter capacity, Abrahamian supervises the presidentially-appointed regional governors and their administrations, a position tailor-made for a “machine politician” like Abrahamian. Abrahamian was reliably rumored to have been seniormost among those ready to jump ship for Prosperous Armenia, only to have been pulled up short when the entrenched Republican power structure made clear that it would not forgive such defections, Kocharian’s patronage notwithstanding. END COMMENT.)
— ARMEN SARKISSIAN: Formerly prime minister under President Levon Ter-Petrossian (LTP), Armen Sarkissian has returned to his life as a high-flying business consultant and Cambridge lecturer in the UK, where he had spent most of his life before coming back to Armenia to serve in LTP’s cabinet. Avetissian said that Sarkissian was the preferred choice of all those in PM Serzh Sargsian’s circle who hope for a new wave of political and economic reform, more open governance, and a pro-Western stance. Avetissian said he himself would only stay on in the GOAM after the presidential elections if Sargsian chooses Sarkissian to be PM. Only Sarkissian, among the leading candidates, would represent an infusion of badly-needed new blood and new ideas into the closed circle of the Armenian ruling establishment, and represent a chance to break the culture of corruption that threatens to consume the Armenian political elite.
— TIGRAN SARGSIAN: The Central Bank Chairman is a bit of a dark horse, but would represent a compromise candidate, since he is close to both Kocharian and Serzh Sargsian. According to Avetissian, this is because he has been, in effect, the personal banker to both, at the center of each man’s shadowy personal financial empire. Sargsian is actively angling for the slot. Avetissian said he himself had gotten his political start working for Tigran Sargsian (another Muskie grad) at the Central Bank, and the two men had for a time been quite close. They later had a falling out over Tigran Sargsian’s personal corruption, which Avetissian had been invited to join, but refused. By then, as he tells the story, Avetissian had made friends throughout the government, and was able to move to the Finance Ministry under Khachatrian.
(COMMENT: It is impossible to be sure of how much of this version is true, and how much can be put down to Avetissian’s score-settling with a former boss, but we believe his distaste for corruption is genuine. Meanwhile, other rumors have Tigran Sargsian about to take over a Russian bank’s Armenia operations, which may or may not be incompatible with the PM possibility. END COMMENT)
¶4. (S) KOCHARIAN’S AGENT IN CAMP: Regardless of who becomes prime minister, Avetissian said that Serzh Sargsian and Kocharian have already agreed that Armen Gevorgian will be deputy prime minister. (NOTE: Gevorgian is currently Kocharian’s presidential chief of staff, and was recently also appointed concurrently as Secretary of the National Security Council, a positon Sargsian himself had held while he was defense minister. END NOTE) Gevorgian is Kocharian’s man, and expected to look out for Kocharian’s interests in the new government.
¶5. (S) KOCHARIAN’S FAILED PUSH: Avetissian told us he had been on an (unspecified) foreign trip with President Kocharian in the wake of the May 2007 parliamentary election, which gave him the opportunity to spend a lot of time with the president. Avetissian understood from several comments made during this trip that Kocharian had been greatly disappointed with the poor showing by Prosperous Armenia (PA), which he had hoped would be able to compete with the Republicans on an equal footing. The late Prime Minister Andranik Markarian’s untimely death had been a significant blow to PA’s chances, by putting the Republicans’ champion, Serzh Sargsian, directly in control of the key levers of central and local government structures, making it easier for the Republicans to bring behind the scenes pressure to bear on actual and would-be PA supporters, as well as on local officials to get out the vote for the Republicans. Though Markarian was a Republican, he was not part of the Serzh Sargsian machine, and would have been a neutral arbiter between PA and the Republicans.
¶6. (S) … AND GEVORGIAN’S: Another element of Kocharian’s generally unsuccessful election initiatives was the new United National Liberal Party (MIAK), organized just weeks before the election registration deadline. Avetissian said that presidential chief of staff Armen Gevorgian was the hidden hand behind MIAK, which would explain how the tiny, infant political party found itself able to secure some prime Yerevan billboard spots for the campaign, when much more established opposition parties were unable to do so. MIAK failed to win enough votes to gain parliamentary seats, and has since fallen dormant. The MIAK leadership and cadres were drawn almost entirely from the membership of the British Embassy’s educational exchange program alumni association. Since the election MIAK’s top leader, Levon Martirosyan, has been hired as a cabinet adviser to Prime Minister Sargsian, which Avetissian asserts means Martirosyan has essentially switched camps within the ruling circle, from Kocharian to Sargsian.
(COMMENT: Unlike Kocharian’s backing for PA, which is the worst kept secret in town, we had never before heard the rumor that Gevorgian was behind MIAK. However, Avetissian is old friends with several of the leading personalities behind MIAK, though he strongly disagreed with them about their political plans ) an argument that pol/econ chief happened to witness firsthand during a U.S. Embassy reception — so we give credence to his insider knowledge on this point. Among the leading MIAK personalities, though he kept his name formally out of it, was MCA-Armenia CEO Ara Hovsepian, who is a longstanding colleague, sometime friend, and professional rival of Avetissian’s. END COMMENT)
¶7. (S) TUSSLING OVER THE CABINET: Avetissian told us the reason for the longer-than-expected delay in announcing the post-election cabinet was not so much — as was reported at the time — the difficulty of negotiating with the ARF (Dashnaks), but rather intramural arguments within the Republican camp about how to allocate Republican seats. Sargsian had wanted to bring in a lot of non-partisan technocrats to signal his intention to inject fresh thinking and clean, meritocratic management into the new cabinet. However, he was significantly stymied in this by old-guard Republican stalwarts Tigran Torossian (parliament speaker)and Galust Sahakian (formerly Republican Party faction leader in parliament), who insisted that more positions go to party loyalists. Avetissian said that, while Sargsian had been forced to cede ground to the party barons during this pre-presidential election phase, Sargsian was a patient and methodical man. Avetissian was sure that Torossian, Sahakian, and their ilk would be systematically marginalized as Sargsian gradually assumes full control over party structures.
(COMMENT: Sargsian had widely foreshadowed, during the coalition negotiation phase, that his new cabinet would have lots of new blood, but in the event there were far more familiar faces at the cabinet table than fresh ones. This lends credibility to Avetissian’s assertion. END COMMENT)
¶8. (S) FINANCE AND ECONOMY MINISTER KHACHATRIAN: We asked Avetissian about his own boss and patron, Vardan Khachatrian. Avetissian told us that Khachatrian had been the late prime minister’s man, and had been left without political sponsorship by Markarian’s death. The only season Khachatrian had been retained in his portfolio after the May elections was that the intramural factions within the ruling party had been unable to agree on anyone to replace him before the cabinet had to be announced. Khachatrian has very limited political influence, however, and is not seen as a long-term choice.
¶9. (S) COMMENT: We have little to corroborate the concrete assertions that Avetissian has made, and we cannot be certain that he is right — or even perfectly truthful — on every point. His own personal and professional jealousies must also be taken into account. However, Avetissian has been a good, effective, and longstanding embassy contact. More importantly, taken as a whole, his observations have the ring of truth. This is the most detailed exposition we have had since the May election of the intramural cat fights that we know are going on within the government and ruling parties.
BIO NOTES:
¶10. (C) David Avetissian has served for about six years as Deputy Finance and Economy Minister. Prior to joining the Finance Ministry, he earned an MBA from the University of Nebraska on a U.S.-funded Muskie Fellowship. He is also an alumni of the Manoukian Public Fellowship Program and the U.K.-sponsored John Smith Fellowship. Avetissian’s MFE portfolio includes all international assistance projects, and he has been our primary point of contact for both the U.S.-Armenia Economic Task Force and during the start-up of MCC in Armenia. Over the past nine months, Avetissian has been increasingly (if only privately) vocal in his criticism of the Armenian government and the problem of government corruption. He told us in April that he hoped to take a break from government service following the May 12 elections, and applied (late and without GRE scores and, therefore, unsuccessfully) to become an economic PhD candidate at Harvard starting in fall 2007.
¶11. (C) Relatively young (born in 1972), Avetissian has a bit of an unpredictable personality, sometimes exceedingly polite, almost obsequious, and other times touchy and short tempered. He likes to give advice, and has suggested to us effective tactics for approaching other ministries and ministers on sensitive issues. He is clearly ambitious, but seems to prefer to succeed on merit, hard work, and being right on substance, rather than by overtly embracing a political party identity.
¶12. (C) In one conversation, Avetissian bragged that he was single-handedly responsible for the law that banned casinos from operating within city limits. In his version of the story, cabinet colleagues had been disposed to let the lucrative casinos continue operating in prominent downtown locations, but Avetissian had made a political argument that the shady businesses projected a sleazy image in the capital. He said that then Prime Minister Markarian had presented his (Avetissian’s) argument to President Kocharian, who had come down on Avetissian’s side of the issue, and the casinos had been kicked out of town. Avetissian was disappointed, though, that many simply relocated to sites along the main airport road, just outside city limits.
¶13. (C) Avetissian is a twin, and a lover of classical music. His engagement to Ani Batikian, an extremely skilled, European-trained violinist, was abruptly broken off by Batikian just weeks (perhaps even days) before the planned April 2007 wedding, reportedly because her parents wanted her to accept a place at the New England Conservatory, and Avetissian’s Harvard plans fell through. We understand that Avetissian was briefly married once before, for just a few months, before that relationship ended.
PERINA
