Tsarukian’s Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) will run in the June 7 elections in a de facto alliance with several other opposition groups and politicians. Although Tsarukian tops the list of its election candidates, he made clear on Thursday that he will not being vying for the post of prime minister. The BHK will nominate another candidate for the top government post in case of its victory, he said without naming him or her.
Tsarukian seemed open to cutting power-sharing deals with other opposition forces if they win a collective majority in the next Armenian parliament. But he ruled out any deal that would see Kocharian become prime minister.
“He did his job,” the tycoon said of the ex-president. “Let him rest so that new faces, new approaches emerge.”
Tsarukian became one of Armenia’s richest men and was widely regarded as a Kocharian ally during the latter’s 1998-2008 presidency. A number of Kocharian loyalists were repeatedly elected to the parliament on the BHK ticket in the following years.
Kocharian’s Hayastan alliance, which finished second in the last general elections held in 2021, issued a thinly veiled rebuke of Tsarukian on Friday.
“If a particular force declares that even if change depends on it, it will not cooperate, then it is openly saying that it will hinder regime change,” said Hayastan.
Tsarukian indicated his readiness to back the prime-ministerial candidacy of another, wealthier businessman, Samvel Karapetian. “We would discuss that,” he told journalists.
Under the Armenian constitution, Karapetian is not eligible to become prime minister because of his dual Russian citizenship. His political team has pledged to remove that constitutional hurdle in case of its election victory.
The BHK, Hayastan and Karapetian’s Strong Armenia bloc are widely seen as the main election challengers of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and his Civil Contract party. In a series of statements made earlier this year, senior Civil Contract figures signaled their concerns that the three opposition groups could win enough parliament seats to oust Pashinian.
Pashinian has repeatedly branded them as a “party of war” keen to reignite Armenia’s conflict with Azerbaijan. Opposition figures have countered that he is resorting to scaremongering for fear of losing power.