In a statement, Fatherland said that it cannot enter into an electoral alliance with any of those groups because of having a different “strategic vision of Armenia's future.” It argued that its separate participation in the June 7 elections would lead to a “fragmentation” of opposition votes and thus benefit the ruling Civil Contract party.
Vanetsian’s party had joined forces with former President Serzh Sarkisian’s Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) in the run up to the last elections held in June 2021 and won by Civil Contract party. Their Pativ Unem bloc came in a distant third with 5.2 percent of the vote.
Vanetsian announced the bloc’s effective breakup a year later, following the Armenian opposition’s failure to topple Pashinian with a campaign of daily street protests. A Fatherland spokesman made clear last October that it will not team up with the HHK again and plans to enter the 2026 race “on its own.”
The party ran in a November local election in a district west of Yerevan comprising the town of Vagharshapat and 17 nearby villages. It failed to win any seats in the local council. Eight of its members and supporters were subsequently arrested on vote buying charges rejected by them and Vanetsian as politically motivated.
Vanetsian, 46, is a former officer of the NSS who was appointed as head of Armenia’s most powerful security agency right after the 2018 “velvet revolution” that brought Nikol Pashinian to power. He became one of the most influential members of Pashinian’s entourage before being sacked in 2019. Vanetsian has since been a vocal critic of the prime minister.