“Haykakan Zhamanak” says it remains unclear what Gagik Tsarukian and members of his Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) mean by “regime change.” “Who should quit power and who should come to power as a result of that regime change?” asks the paper. “And for that purposes? Answers to these questions do not have to be direct. When Levon Ter-Petrosian returned to politics in 2007 the first thing he did was to give political evaluations of the Sarkisian-Kocharian duo, his own presidency and Serzh Sarkisian as the government-backed presidential candidate. And those evaluations became the coordinates of his position in the political landscape. Gagik Tsarukian does not and will not have such coordinates until he evaluates the current authorities and Serzh Sarkisian in particular, Robert Kocharian and his own presence in government.”
“Zhamanak” says that Sarkisian is now more concerned with foreign policy than the anti-government rallies organized by the BHK, the Armenian National Congress (HAK) and the Zharangutyun party. “It is clear that Serzh Sarkisian is trying to establish the supremacy of his foreign policy agenda [over domestic politics,]” writes the paper. This, it says, would enable him to ward off mounting challenges from the opposition trio.
“Hayots Ashkhar” laughs off opposition claims that Friday’s rally in Yerevan’s Liberty Square will precipitate Sarkisian’s downfall. The pro-presidential paper says that the rally could only ascertain domestic “political scenarios” that should be anticipated in the months ahead. It hopes that the BHK, the HAK and Zharangutyun will prefer dialogue with the authorities to “revolutionary calls” for regime change.
“The only question which today’s rally should answer is as follows: will BHK leader Gagik Tsarukian declare that he and his party are aiming to oust Serzh Sarkisian from the post of president and win a pre-term presidential election?” writes “Aravot.” The paper believes that other statements to be made at the rally will not matter much.
(Tigran Avetisian)