Speaking at a yearend news conference in Yerevan, Kocharian also denounced the government’s “utter failures” in all key policy areas and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in particular. He joined in the chorus of condemnation aimed at Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s latest statements on the conflict.
“It is clear that if the prime minister says that since 2016 there has not been even a theoretical chance of Karabakh obtaining a status outside Azerbaijan then this is the position of Armenia,” he said. “This means that Armenia has washed its hands of Karabakh.”
Kocharian’s Hayastan alliance and other opposition groups blame Pashinian for Armenia’s defeat in last year’s war with Azerbaijan that left at least 3,800 Armenian soldiers dead. The prime minister again charged late last week that the six-week war was the result of peace talks mishandled by former Armenian leaders.
Kocharian pledged to bring down Pashinian’s government “through barricades or elections” when Hayastan launched last month what it called a “nationwide resistance” campaign with a rally in Yerevan. The bloc, which has emerged as the country’s leading opposition force, has staged no further protests since then.
The ex-president said on Monday that despite what he sees as a sharp drop in Pashinian’s approval ratings Armenians are still not willing to attend anti-government demonstrations in very large numbers.
“According to our estimates, that drop in the approval rating has not yet translated into a mass readiness for an active struggle in the streets,” he told reporters. “We believe that these people [led by Pashinian] will not give up power willingly. It will take mass street protests to oust them. Not [protests attended] by five, six or ten thousand people but mass protests.”
“We don’t see that conditions are ripe for that today,” Kocharian went on. “And this disappoints some of our supporters, who are ready for that struggle. They are ready to fight, stage sit-ins, do everything. But we cannot lead those people to such upheavals unprepared.”
“We are preparing for those mass protests. We are on that path,” he said, hinting that the launch of a protest movement is a matter of months.
Kocharian admitted that some Armenians have also lost faith in the opposition since the June parliamentary elections won by the ruling Civil Contract party. “We just think -- and we hope -- that our approval ratings can recover,” he said, adding that Pashinian’s falling popularity is irreversible.
Pashinian’s party won the snap elections with almost 54 percent of the vote, according to their official results. Hayastan came in a distant second with 21 percent.