ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the period of 1980s to 2003 and discusses the administrations of Presidents Levon Ter-Petrossian and Robert Kocharian. In Armenia, as elsewhere in the USSR through 1989, the only political party functioning legally was the Communist Party. A Constitutional Commission was formed in 1992. It included scholars and judges as well leaders of parties represented in parliament. By and large the Armenian Constitution of 1995 provided for a liberal democracy akin to Western models and incorporated, sometimes with changes, many of the basic laws that had been adopted since 1990, including the separation of powers. The democratization process was marred by three developments during the Ter-Petrossian administration. The first occurred in the summer of 1990, soon after the Armenian National Movement (ANM) had won control of the Supreme Soviet. The second development was the order signed in late December 1994 by the president banning the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF).
