Opposition groups led by Sarkisian and Kocharian have traded bitter recriminations over the last few months. In particular, they have accused each other of helping Nikol Pashinian come to power in 2018.
Sarkisian for the first time publicly joined in the acrimony late on Monday as he delivered a speech on the 35th anniversary of the creation of his Republican Party of Armenia (HHK). Without mentioning Kocharian by name, he said that the latter’s loyalists participated in the massive street protests that forced him to resign and are therefore complicit in what Pashinian brought upon Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh in the following years. He said they now want to “clean their not-too-distant past” by blaming him for the 2018 “velvet revolution.”
“It’s clear to me why they behave like that or so anxiously hide their efforts to help the power usurpers in 2018 or maybe try to steal opposition votes ahead of the forthcoming elections,” charged Sarkisian.
Members of Kocharian’s political team did not respond to the accusations as of Tuesday afternoon.
Both ex-presidents are natives of Nagorno-Karabakh who led the region during the 1991-1994 war with Azerbaijan. They worked in tandem after moving to Yerevan and taking up high-level government positions there in the late 1990s. Kocharian handed over power to Sarkisian after completing his second term in office in 2008.
In his speech delivered at the HHK headquarters in Yerevan, Sarkisian also lambasted the current Armenian government, branding it as a “world champion of lying” and saying that Pashinian usurped power as part of a plot hatched by unnamed outside forces.
“They promised peace but we got war,” said the 70-year-old ex-president. “They promised prosperity but we got emigration. They promised to defend Artsakh but surrendered Artsakh.”
“Dear compatriots, stay at ease until the authorities decide, for the sake of ‘peace,’ that your homes are also the object of a border dispute [with Azerbaijan,]” he added tartly in a thinly veiled rebuke to Armenians.
Sarkisian also said: “Our goal is clear and unchanged: at the moment the primary objective is to get rid of the capitulatory authorities.”
A senior member of Pashinian’s Civil Contract party, deputy parliament speaker Ruben Rubinian, scoffed at Sarkisian’s remarks on Tuesday. He argued that the Armenian parliament elected Pashinian prime minister in May 2018 with the decisive backing of lawmakers affiliated with the HHK.
“If there was a usurpation of power, then it means that Serzh Sarkisian participated in the usurpation of power,” Rubinian told reporters. “If that was done by outside forces, then it means that Serzh Sarkisian and the Republican Party participated in a coup d’etat carried out from abroad.”
