US-Armenians likely to elect Clinton – political analyst

The upcoming presidential election in the United States will likely see the Armenian community give a high preference to Hillary Clinton, a political analyst said today, noting that the US-Armenians are traditionally inclined to take sides with Democrats.

“It is a historically and statistically proven fact that our [community members] have favored Democrats; so this time is not going to be an exception either. Given especially that our community is largely concentrated in California and Masachuetts, pro-Democrat states which historically vote for Democrat candidates,” Suren Sargsyan, a researcher at the Tuft University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, told Tert.am.

According to him, the Armenians are not likely to cast their ballots for Trump, who builds his campaign on aggressive policies as a relatively new figure in politics.

Sargsyan said he hasn’t so far heard either Trump or Clinton raise any question of interest to the Armenians.

Meantime, he noted that Clinton twice visited Armenia (as opposed to Trump) as Secretary of State and demonstrated an active interest in pro-Armenian initiatives in Senate.

The expert admitted, however, that Clinton several times disavowed her pledge, refusing to use “genocide” when referring to the 1915 killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.

“My belief is that Clinton will return to the Armenia-Turkey reconciliation [process] if elected a president, although no official statement has been made yet. And Hillary Clinton is among the few in the United States who has a perfect understanding of our region and the Armenia-Turkey relations as she was herself the negotiator over the two protocols between Turkey and Armenia,” he added.

The protocols, on the normalization of the relations between Turkey and Armenia and opening of the closed border, were signed in Zurich, Switzerland on October 10, 2009. The move was part of the rapprochment process initiated by President Serzh Sargsyan back in 2008 (the historic moment became widely known as ‘football diplomacy’ as President Abdullah Gul of Turkey visited Yerevan then to watch with his Armenian counterpart a WC qualifier between the two countries’ national teams). Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov acted as negotiators in the process.

The protocols raised a strong wave of protest in the Armenian Diaspora. Asked whether it could imply that the US-Armenian community might be opposed to, or adopt a neutral stance on, the Democratic candidate, Sargsyan replied, “The Armenian community will not be guide itself only by that, given especially that the Democratic candidate is the only one who twice visited Armenia when in office.”

“This is much more important than her help to the sides during the negotiations,” he added.

Sargsyan said he sees higher chances for Clinton to succeed in the upcoming election.