Opposition protest demonstration, Matendaran, Yerevan, Armenia © Onnik James Krikorian 2003

This month marks the 20th anniversary of the Rose Revolution in Georgia that brought Mikheil Saakashvili to power. Though Misha’s rule was to deteriorate rapidly by the time of demonstrations held in Tbilisi in 2007, there’s no doubt that the change of power four years earlier turned Georgia around. This was especially relevant given that earlier in the year, post-presidential election protests in Yerevan led to defeat for the opposition and even more authoritarianism in Armenia.

I remember vividly entering my local corner shop in the Komitas district of Yerevan during the 2003 Rose Revolution in Georgia and watching the live broadcast on the television set. There was a sense of jealousy from the owners. “Wait until we do this,” said the wife of the owner. “We will dance in a way you’ve never seen before,” she said, the dislike of then President Robert Kocharyan was that much. But, of course, his main competitor in the elections that year in Armenia was the son of former Soviet-era boss Karen Demirchyan, who had been assassinated in the 1999 parliamentary shootings, the lacklustre Stepan.

Unlike Georgia, where Rustavi-2 live broadcast the revolution, there was no such use of technology during the 2003 presidential election in Armenia. There were few media outlets present and even fewer foreign journalists – just myself and one other. Indeed, during the period between the first and second rounds of the presidential elections I was called in to OVIR to ‘check my visa’ and also an interrogation by the Armenian National Security Service (NSS). To be fair, there was no pressure. Indeed, the NSS agent even told me he enjoyed the ‘interrogation’ so much, especially about Karabakh, that if I had time maybe I could pop by again to continue talking.

This later turned into an attempted bribe from the NSS, Armenian Foreign Ministry, and Yerevan State University  to discredit Georgia. Naturally, I refused.

Of course, the following year, encouraged by the Rose Revolution in Georgia, the opposition protested again and several journalists, including myself, were beaten by regime thugs that were mainly the bodyguards of Kocharyan’s oligarchs under the watchful eye of Chorni Gago. But I digress. I’ve been meaning to post some of the photos I took from the 2003 presidential elections that really marked the decline of Armenia into an authoritarian regime supported by a cadre of violent criminal oligarchs that would inevitably lead to violence and fatalities at the next elections in 2008, another I also covered.

Until I get those photos from 2008 online, here’s some from 2003.

2003 presidential elections, Yerevan/Akhurik/Gyumri, Armenia © Onnik James Krikorian 2003