US embassy cable - 05YEREVAN2075

C O N F I D E N T I A L YEREVAN 002075 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR EUR/CACEN, DRL 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/28/2015 
TAGS: PGOV, PHUM, ASEC, AM 
SUBJECT: OPPOSITION RALLY DRAWS LACKLUSTER RESPONSE 
 
REF: A) YEREVAN 2061 B) YEREVAN 2074 
 
Classified By: DCM A.F. Godfrey for reasons 1.4 (b, d). 
 
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SMALL RALLY, LONG SPEECHES, NO EXCITEMENT 
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1. (C) Opposition leaders came together November 28 in a 
larger group than they have in the past, but still only 
managed to draw about 2500 people to an afternoon rally on a 
perfect fall day in Yerevan.  One day after the 
constitutional referendum that Council of Europe (CoE) 
observers characterized as "marred" (ref B), an opposition 
rally drew a crowd of mostly older men who came to listen to 
a series of speeches from the various leaders of the 
opposition.  While the leaders who came together included 
more of the opposition groups than at rallies in the past, 
they still lacked a clear message and failed to generate any 
excitement in the crowd.  The rally began well after 3:00, 
and participants began trickling away by 4:15 (even before 
Republic Party leader Aram Z. Sargsian's speech), with 
everyone heading home by 5:15.  (Note:  Public television 
crews demonstratively filmed a lame street dog who had joined 
the crowd, then quickly curled up and took a nap for most of 
the time during the demonstration, clearly seeing the 
sleeping dog as an apt image for the less-than-exciting 
rally.  End Note.) 
 
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MORE LEADERS COMING TOGETHER MEANS MORE SPEECHES... 
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2. (C) Kicking the rally off was People's Party leader Stepan 
Demirchyan, followed by a locally well-known conductor, Ohan 
Duryan.  Republic Party official Artak Zeinanyan described 
alleged vote fraud in detail, followed by a senior member of 
the Armenian Academy of Sciences, by the Justice Bloc's 
Viktor Dalakian, by the Democratic Partiy leader Aram G. 
Sargsian, then the Liberal Party's Hovhannes Hovhannisyan, 
Constitutional Rights Union Hrant Khachatryan, Heritage Party 
leader (and former FM) Raffi Hovhannisian, Republic Party 
leader Aram Z. Sargsian, New Times Party leader Aram 
Karapetyan and National Democratic Union leader Vazgen 
Manukyan.  Although this group of opposition leaders came 
together for the November 28 rally, it clearly still lacks a 
unified message.  While different speakers struck different 
notes, however, they were unified in two areas -- urging each 
person present to return November 29 "with five or ten more 
people," and decrying the referendum results as falsified. 
 
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...NOT MORE IDEAS 
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3. (C) With government officials wisely not moving to impede 
the rally in any way, Manukyan's call for "new ideas" and 
comments that the opposition couldn't keep doing the same 
things at rallies only sounded slightly plaintive.  The one 
thing that does unite the opposition is its desire to react 
to the authorities.  The authorities limited their presence, 
however, to roughly 30 uniformed police (clearly directing 
traffic) and a healthy number of well-behaved plainclothes 
officers, but allowed the rally to take place; we don't 
expect to see the GOAM making the same mistakes it made in 
April 2004.  Until the opposition can decide on a positive 
message, we expect that future rallies (including the one 
planned for November 29) will be largely restrained and 
marked by the same lack of political passion we observed 
November 28. 
EVANS