Like other opposition groups, Strong Armenia has rejected as fraudulent those results that showed it finishing second in the June 7 elections with 23 percent of the vote. But it has refrained from staging street protests in Yerevan. Karapetian said that such protests could have caused unnecessary “upheavals” in the country.
“That is why we are following a legal path to regime change,” he told reporters. “One day we will be delighted to witness it.”
Karapetian also said that his bloc is waiting for “a number of triggers” which it thinks are necessary for toppling Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian through antigovernment demonstrations.
“If those triggers are in place, there will be both street struggles and struggles in the National Assembly,” he said.
Despite calls from many opposition supporters to boycott the parliament, Strong Armenia and former President Robert Kocharian’s Hayastan alliance have decided to take up their parliamentary seats. They both have insisted that this does not mean they accept the legitimacy of the ruling Civil Contract’s election victory shown by the official results.
Shortly after the polls, Karapetian proposed that the country’s leading opposition forces set up a “coordinating council” that would discuss and take joint actions against the Armenian government. Negotiations between them are still going on, with no agreements announced so far.