"Armenia’s Long War over Electoral Fraud. Kocharyan: accused, accuser and accused once more" di Carlo Coppola
20 May 2026, updated 25 August 2026 A single question runs taut through twenty years of Armenian political history: who actually manipulated the vote, and who cries wolf to cover their own tracks? Robert Kocharyan — president from 1998 to 2008, and today the leader of the opposition — embodies that question more completely than anyone else. His career reads as a reversed diptych: first accused of rigging elections, then the accuser of those who unseated him. A coda that may not, in the event, prove to be the last. When Kocharyan occupied the presidency, Armenian elections did not enjoy a reputation for integrity. The 2003 presidential contest , which he won in a runoff against Stepan Demirchyan, was judged by OSCE/ODIHR and the Council of Europe to have been marred by systemic irregularities — a heavy shadow over the legitimacy of his second term. Five years later, barred from standing again, Kocharyan backed his designated successor, Serzh Sargsyan. The 2008 presidential elec...
