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Timeline
August 1990 – Armenia declares its sovereignty.
September 1991 – Armenia holds a national referendum. An overwhelming majority of voters (94 percent) vote for separation from the Soviet Union. Independence is declared.
October 1991 – Levon Ter-Petrossian, head of the Pan-Armenian National Movement (Hayots Hamazgain Sharzhum), is elected president.
March 1992 – Armenia joins the United Nations.
July 1995 – Armenia adopts a new constitution.
January 1998 – Deputy Interior Minister Colonel-General Artrun Markaryan is shot in the legs, marking the third violent attack against an Armenian official in one week.
February 1998 – President Ter-Petrossian resigns as a result of public demonstrations against his policies regarding the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and is replaced by Prime Minister Robert Kocharian, who is elected president in March.
February 1998 – The government lifts a ban on the Dashnak party, one of the country's oldest opposition parties, allowing it to participate in the upcoming presidential election.
February 1999 – A new electoral code governing presidential, parliamentary and local elections is adopted. International observers praise the new law but raise concerns about its lack of transparency and protection of voting rights.
October 1999 – Gunmen open fire in the parliament, killing the prime minister, the speaker of parliament and six other officials. The killers are sentenced to life in prison in December 2003.
September 2000 – The World Bank approves 4.7 billion drams (US$12.2 million) for a project designed to improve independence, accountability and efficiency in the judicial system.
May 2001 – Government security agents order Service TV, an independent local cable station, to stop broadcasting an interview with an opposition politician. After the station director refuses, the power is cut off. In August, the station is closed by decree of the governor following a broadcast of a live interview with another opposition politician.
May 2001 – The World Bank pledges $116 million drams (US$300,000) for an anti-corruption program in Armenia to be managed by the Yerevan office of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
April 2002 – Armenia ratifies the European Convention on Human Rights.
October 2002 – Several non-governmental organizations (NGOs) assisted by the OSCE release a major public opinion survey on the status of corruption in Armenia that finds the overwhelming majority of respondents believe corruption is a serious problem and that it is mainly caused by state authorities.
March 2003 – Robert Kocharian is re-elected president. International observers find very serious irregularities including ballot box stuffing. The Constitutional Court acknowledges the irregularities but upholds the electoral outcome.
March 2003 – A court sentences Arthur Sakunts, president of the Vanadzor office of the Helsinki Citizen's Assembly, to 10 days of administrative detention for organizing public protests of the presidential election without a permit.
May 2003 – Parliamentary elections are held. A shooting at a polling station in Shahumian results in one dead and two injured. International observers decry the shooting and identify a number of other irregularities that occurred during the election. A referendum on constitutional reform covering human rights, executive-legislative branch relations and judicial independence is invalidated due to insufficient voter turnout. A second set of constitutional amendments, focusing on executive-legislative relations and judicial independence, passes in a nationwide referendum in November 2005.
May 2003 – Armenia signs the Council of Europe Criminal Law Convention on Corruption, which criminalizes a wide range of corruption-related activities and provides for expanded international cooperation. Ratification follows in January 2006.
July 2003 – The OSCE expresses concern over the decision of the National Commission on Television and Radio not to award broadcasting licenses to two independent television stations, A1+ and Noyan Tapan.
October 2003 – The government and the World Bank develop a television program called "My Rights" that educates Armenians of their legal rights and how the legal system functions. The program, which first airs in September 2004, becomes a huge success.
November 2003 – Armenia adopts the Government Anti-Corruption Strategy and Implementation Action Plan, which aims to prevent corruption in almost every major domestic policy sector. The president creates a special anti-corruption policy advisory post and in June 2004 establishes a Council for Fighting Corruption to monitor the implementation of the Strategy.
January 2004 – Armenia joins the Council of Europe's corruption monitoring body, the Group of States Against Corruption (GRECO).
February 2004 – Armenia signs the Council of Europe Civil Law Convention on Corruption, which requires parties to provide civil law remedies to people who have suffered damage as a result of corruption, and ratifies it in January 2005.
April 2004 – A special Department for the Fight Against Corruption is created within the Prosecutor General's Office to investigate corruption cases. As of early 2006, however, the department remains insufficiently staffed.
April 2004 – The government denies several requests from opposition parties to organize protest rallies. The government does not interfere when several small rallies are staged without permission, but arrests 35 people in connection with a two-day protest that attracts an estimated 7,000 people. Two weeks later, parliament adopts a new law that abandons the government permit requirement in favor of a less burdensome advance notification requirement. However, the new law limits where demonstrations can be held and also authorizes the police to break up illegal rallies and demonstrations.
May 2004 – The United States selects Armenia as one of 16 countries eligible to apply for aid under the new Millennium Challenge Account, a foreign-assistance fund that disburses money to countries that satisfy various anti-corruption and pro-human rights criteria.
May 2005 – Armenia signs—but, as of mid-2006 has not yet ratified—the United Nations Convention against Corruption.
November 2005 – Presidential aide Bagrat Esayan admits during a public conference that corruption is systemic in Armenia.
April 2006 – The Prosecutor General's Office reports the number of corruption cases sent to the courts in 2005 increased over the previous year.
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