Karapetian’s nephew Narek, who coordinates activities of the Mer Dzevov (In Our Way) movement, said the party named Strong Armenia has already decided who will top the list of its candidates in the elections slated for early June. He declined to name him or her.
“The candidate, to be honest, has been decided long ago,” Narek Karapetian told reporters. “We will announce him [during the party’s founding congress] on February 12.”
Samvel Karapetian is not eligible to run for the post of prime minister because of his dual Russian citizenship. Some media outlets speculated last summer and fall that former Prime Minister Karen Karapetian (no relation to the tycoon) will take on that role. The once popular ex-premier, who served under former President Serzh Sarkisian from 2016-2018, has still not commented on such a possibility.
Narek Karapetian again would not say whether the new party will enter into an electoral alliance with other opposition groups. He made clear earlier that it will not team up with any of the two opposition blocs represented in the current Armenian parliament. They are led by Sarkisian and another former president, Robert Kocharian.
Kocharian’s Hayastan alliance finished second in the last parliamentary elections held in 2021. It comprises the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), a major opposition party. Dashnaktsutyun indicated last week that it will remain allied to Kocharian.
“The main task of the opposition is to galvanize the passive electorate, and this cannot be done by a single force, it must be done by several forces,” Armen Rustamian, a Dashnaktsutyun leader, said on Tuesday.
“There is a lot of dissatisfaction with this government … and that disgruntled electorate should have an opportunity to choose: if they don't want us, let them go and vote for another opposition force,” argued Rustamian.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has expressed confidence that his Civil Contract party will win the elections. Opposition leaders say recent months’ arrests of dozens of government critics, including Samvel Karapetian, suggest that Pashinian is actually afraid of losing power.
Mer Dzevov was unveiled in late August two months after Karapetian was arrested and prosecuted following his strong criticism of Pashinian’s efforts to depose the supreme head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Catholicos Garegin II. The movement claims to have attracted 17,000 members since then. The new party linked to it is expected to be one of Pashinian’s main election challengers.