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Obituary: Karen Demirchian
Independent, The (London), Oct 29, 1999 by Felix Corley
KILLED IN the shooting spree in parliament that decimated the Armenian leadership, Karen Demirchian was still re-establishing himself as a political force in the former Soviet republic a decade after he had been forced to quit as Communist Party boss.
In his democratic reincarnation, Demirchian was not quite as successful as his erstwhile Caucasian Communist Party colleagues of the 1970s and 1980s Eduard Shevardnadze and Heidar Aliev. While Shevardnadze made a dramatic return to power in Georgia as president, closely followed by Aliev in Azerbaijan, Demirchian's re-emergence on to the Armenian political stage in 1998 led him only as far as speaker of parliament.
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Nevertheless, the sight of the three former Communist Party leaders clawing their way back to the top only a few years after the collapse of Soviet power might have seemed unimaginable to outsiders, as the three were all linked to Leonid Brezhnev's era of stagnation.
Demirchian's 14 years at the helm - from 1974 to 1988 - were prosperous years for Armenia. Grand buildings went up in Yerevan, standards of living were relatively high and Armenia enjoyed more freedom than other Soviet republics.
Yet it was nationalist ferment that eventually saw him swept from power by the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, intent on bringing in a new broom to rid Armenia of what the Soviet leadership considered destabilising street demonstrations.
As hundreds of thousands of Armenians thronged the streets of Yerevan calling for the transfer of Nagorno-Karabakh from Azerbaijani to Armenian jurisdiction, the alarm bells began to ring in Moscow. Demirchian failed to quell the protests and was sacrificed. His dismissal in May 1988 was officially for health reasons, but no one was fooled.
His reappearance on the Armenian political stage - at the age of 65 - was equally dramatic. Word got around, no doubt spread by his friends, that he was planning to contest the March 1998 presidential poll. Initial belief that he would be humiliated was soon forgotten as he began an energetic campaign across the country and a bandwagon started to roll.
He had no policies - his answers to questions were a model of vagueness - but he had the gift for conveying an image of stability and evoking nostalgia for the golden age when he was in charge. This message was constantly reinforced with election broadcasts harking back to his rule, when there was round-the-clock electricity, salaries and pensions were paid on time and new buildings sprang up everywhere.
Although not a member of any political party, he managed to garner 30 per cent of the votes in the first round and 40 per cent in the second- round run-off against the eventual winner, Robert Kocharian.
Demirchian's respectable showing spurred him to further political action and he soon formed the People's Party as his vehicle. He teamed up in early 1999 with the Republican Party of the then Defence Minister Vazgen Sarkissian to form the Miasnutyun (Unity) alliance to contest the May 1999 parliamentary elections.
The alliance won with 43 per cent of the vote and the majority of parliamentary seats. Demirchian was overwhelmingly elected speaker when parliament convened in June. In a supreme irony, he was even allocated the same office he had occupied a decade earlier when the parliament building housed the Communist Party. Demirchian said he felt he was "returning home after a long vacation".
Born in the Armenian capital, Yerevan, Demirchian had a difficult childhood. Both his parents died when he was still an infant. He decided on a career in engineering, and took up studies at the Yerevan Polytechnical Institute in 1949.
After graduating in 1954 he worked briefly for a research institute in Leningrad before returning to Armenia to join the Yerevan Electrotechnical Factory. A member of the Communist Party since 1955, he soon became secretary of the factory Party committee.
In 1959 he was sent to Moscow to the Higher Party School, gaining his diploma in 1961, a prerequisite for higher party service. He returned to work as chief engineer of the Yerevan Electrotechnical Factory and later director.
In 1966 he became third secretary of the Yerevan party committee, joining the secretariat of the Armenian Central Committee in 1972. He was appointed as first secretary of the Armenian Communist Party in November 1974, effectively the boss of Soviet Armenia. Two years later he also became chairman of the Armenian Supreme Soviet.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union when Armenia regained its independence, Demirchian became director of the Armelectromash electrical equipment plant, the biggest plant in Armenia. He kept out of politics and was a half-forgotten figure from the past.
Although not a decisive politician, whether in the guise of Communist Party first secretary or as parliamentary speaker, Demirchyan had the popular touch, shown at its best during the 1998 presidential campaign. Silver-haired and well-groomed, he would woo his audience with eloquence. A speech over, he would hand out flowers to the ladies before jumping into his Volga to head off for another campaign rally.
