Leading members of Armenia’s former ruling party have given more indications on Wednesday about their party’s intention to participate in snap parliamentary elections due next month.
Ara Babloyan, the speaker of the interim parliament that was dissolved last week, believes that the Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) must take part in the coming elections.
Speaking to journalists on Wednesday, the senior HHK member avoided evaluating the party’s chances in the elections, but added: “The HHK has a serious human and professional potential, and I think that this potential should be used for our further development.”
Snap general elections in Armenia were appointed for December 9 after popular Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian forced the parliament’s dissolution with his tactical resignations and two straight tactical votes in parliament that failed to elect a new prime minister.
Political parties and alliances will have until November 14 to submit their documents for registration in the elections.
The HHK is due to hold a meeting later this week to decide on its plans for the December polls in which political analysts predict a landslide victory for Pashinian, a reformist politician who ousted HHK leader Serzh Sarkisian and his government from power with sustained peaceful street protests in April-May.
Pashinian’s alliance polled over 80 percent of the vote in September municipal elections in capital Yerevan, which is home to more than a third of Armenia’s population.
The HHK did not participate in those local elections and for analysts it remains unclear whether the party that stayed in power for over a decade and has been accused of rigging elections and monopolizing the country’s political landscape will even manage to clear the five-percent hurdle to enter the next parliament.
Earlier on Wednesday, former Defense Minister Vigen Sargsian, whom some media tip as the HHK’s possible number one candidate in the December 9 elections, said in a Facebook post that the former ruling party must take part in the upcoming polls by all means.
“This way, instead of just taking offense at its people, the full-fledged political party will make a bid to serve the people in a new status,” Sargsian wrote.
“Being an opposition is not a privilege, an administrative lever, or a high public position. It is an honorable opportunity to repent for your mistakes with action rather than words. A political party that was for many years a ruling party has no right to just take its experience, knowledge and professional team and retire from public life, ‘washing its hands’.”
In an interview with RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Monday HHK spokesman Eduard Sharmazanov ruled out that the former ruling party will fail to enter the next parliament if it decides to take part in the elections.
According to Sharmazanov, the HHK will not seek to win a majority and have a political ‘revanche’, but will strive to become a “real opposition” to the pro-Pashinian majority in parliament.
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