Say what you mean, do what you say

Published: Thursday June 11, 2009

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At its quarterly meeting on June 10, the Board of Directors of the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation, chaired by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, decided that it would "not resume funding for any further road construction and rehabilitation" in Armenia. Funding had been suspended a year ago.

The road construction and rehabilitation program was one element of the five-year, $235 million Millennium Challenge Compact signed between Armenia and the United States on March 27, 2006. The roads program accounted for $67 million of the grant. The rest of the grant covers agricultural programs, and those programs will continue.

A conditional gift

The Millennium Challenge Corporation differs from other U.S. foreign-assistance programs in at least two ways. First, it provides direct government-to-government assistance. Other major programs invest money on projects through contractors, but not through the government of the foreign country. Second, the grant is conditional on the country's performance in three areas that are important to the grantor, the United States.

The criteria are continued improvement in good governance, investing in people, and liberal economic reform.

Proponents of the MCC argue convincingly that governments which are elected fairly and govern justly are best equipped to spend grant funds in a responsible and transparent manner.

From the inception of the Millennium Challenge Compact with Armenia, the big challenge for both states has been, "Say what you mean and then do what you say."

A good fit

Armenia is a good fit for the program. The Armenian people made a commitment to freedom and democracy at the inception of independence. They chose the path of economic, social, and democratic reform consistent with a modern Western democracy. Armenia eagerly pursued membership in European institutions that espouse and promote democracy, good governance, and the rule of law, as well as economic institutions that espouse liberal economic policies.

What Armenia said in effect was that the West was welcome to hold Armenia to the highest governance and electoral standards because that is what Armenians expected from themselves anyway, with or without prodding from the West.

Not only have Armenians made this commitment; Armenia has made significant progress over the years.

For the past 20 years, Armenia has revised laws, the European Union and the United States have invested millions of dollars on technical assistance programs to address every perceived weakness in the electoral system's design and performance, and indigenous nongovernmental organizations with many thousands of civic activists have invested their time and hope to help insure that electoral-democracy pledges were kept.

Whereas no election since the 1991 elections has been characterized by Western observers as entirely free and fair, each of the last two national elections (May 2007 and February 2008) was characterized by the European Observation Mission as a significant improvement over past elections.

A commitment to solutions

Not surprisingly, proponents of the defeated parties in elections tend to see things in a more negative light than the proponents of the winning parties see them. We find that things aren't as bad as some people say, and they're not as good as others say.

Safeguards in place make it extremely difficult to engage in old-fashioned ballot stuffing or miscounting. Precincts – and the elections as a whole – are run by commissions in which the governing and opposition parties alike are represented, all parties are entitled to proxies at polling places, and observers are likewise allowed. These facts put a greater burden on all parties, the media, and civil society – not just the government – to bring about better elections.

Likewise, broadcast media are legally obligated to provide balanced coverage as well as some free airtime to candidates, and monitors give the broadcast media good marks on carrying out this obligation.

The most credible complaints about violations have to do with private interactions outside polling places: many voters are reportedly offered inducements to vote one way or another, in violation of the law. In addition, there are accusations that administrative resources and law-enforcement mechanisms are abused.

Armenian society does ask itself constantly how it can improve on past performance. A public forum organized this week in Yerevan by the Civilitas Foundation was an excellent instance of this quest. A good mix of political activists talked through the issues. There appeared to be a consensus that a lack of confidence in the fairness of elections can bring about apathy and hopelessness among voters, and must be addressed. Where there's a lack of confidence, voters are more likely to go along with vote-buying schemes than they would be if they felt confident that their vote could make a decisive difference.

Problems on the U.S. end

The MCC concept of assistance conditioned explicitly to measurable performance on stated criteria has not enjoyed the enthusiastic support of all elements of the foreign-assistance community in Washington.

MCC credibility and political viability have depended, in part, on whether the MCC would enforce its standards with recipient nations. In advance of key congressional appropriations decisions, some in Washington would go so far as to say that one or more the MCC's recipients would have to be sanctioned for poor performance to demonstrate that the program is for real.

Over the past 16 months, the United States and the European Union have been urging Armenia to deal head-on with some of the issues that emerged in and after the February 2008 presidential election. These include sorting out criminal and political responsibility for the deadly confrontations of March 1, 2008, and an increasingly impatient U.S. and European expectation that people who remain in prison since then and have not been convicted of violent crimes be released.