Armenian opposition groups are unlikely to join forces in a bid to prevent President Serzh Sarkisian from extending his rule next April, a leading member of Raffi Hovannisian’s Zharangutyun (Heritage) party said on Tuesday.
Hovannisian stated in June that Sarkisian’s possible decision to become prime minister should trigger an anti-government “velvet revolution” in Armenia. He and his associates have since negotiated with other opposition figures in hopes of organizing such a protest movement.
“I’m a little skeptical because what I am seeing now in terms of both the public mood and the behavior of real and fake oppositionists doesn’t give me hope,” Zharangutyun’s deputy chairman, Armen Martirosian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am).He said he therefore does not expect massive anti-government rallies before or after Sarkisian’s final presidential term ends in April 2018.
Martirosian did not name the opposition groups with which his party has negotiated this summer. He said only that none of them is represented in Armenia’s current parliament elected in April.
An opposition alliance led by Hovannisian, former Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian and former Defense Minister Seyran Ohanian failed to win any parliament seats in those elections. The ORO alliance rejected the official vote results as fraudulent but refrained from urging supporters to take to the streets after the ballot.
Susanna Muradian, another senior Zharangutyun member, said last month that Hovannisian, Oskanian and Ohanian will continue to jointly challenge the government. It is not clear, however, whether the bloc continues to exist at all.
Levon Zurabian, the deputy chairman of the Armenian National Congress (HAK) another opposition party not represented in the new parliament, said on Tuesday that it has not negotiated with Hovannisian.
The HAK and the opposition Yelk alliance, which won 9 of the 105 parliament seats, reacted cautiously to the Zharangutyun initiative in June.
Gevorg Gorgisian, a senior Yelk figure, said while his bloc is ready to discuss opposition consolidation it does not think that the question of Sarkisian’s possible becoming prime minister is of paramount importance to the country. He said Armenia needs a comprehensive regime change that could only be achieved through elections.
“It didn’t work out this time around,” Gorgisian said in reference to the April elections. “Maybe we will succeed five years later when people will have no expectations from the [ruling] Republican Party anymore and we will have shown what we are capable of.”