The Strong Armenia party spawned recently by the Mer Dzevov (In Our Way) movement is expected to be one of the main opposition contenders in the elections scheduled for June 7. The HAK publicly signaled an interest in forming an electoral alliance with it in late December. According to its deputy chairman, Levon Zurabian, negotiations between the two political groups are still going on.
“Our approaches were presented, naturally to Samvel Karapetian's team as well,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “The conversation is ongoing, let's see where we get to.”
Ter-Petrosian has lavished praise on Karapetian in a series of social media posts which observers believe underlined the HAK’s desire to team up with the new opposition heavyweight. The 81-year-old ex-president effectively endorsed the Russian-Armenian tycoon on March 2. He went on to claim that the West will try hard to prevent the Karapetian-led opposition from winning the elections and to help Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian hold on to power.
“Pashinian's Western masters will consider Samvel Karapetian's victory as a re-establishment of Russian influence in Armenia, which is not at all part of their long-term plans,” he wrote. “Therefore, they will try to do everything to thwart such a development, ignoring the fact that the exclusive right to choose their own government belongs to the people.”
Karapetian’s political team has reacted cautiously to these overtures. The tycoon’s nephew and right-hand man, Narek Karapetian, said in December that none of Armenia’s former presidents should govern the country again. Zurabian said at the time that the statement “doesn’t apply to us anymore” because the HAK has officially made clear that Ter-Petrosian will not be its top election candidate.
Zurabian said on Tuesday that the HAK will run in the elections on its own if it fails to form an alliance with Strong Armenia or other opposition forces. Ter-Petrosian’s party did so in the last polls held in 2021, failing to win any parliament seats.
Ter-Petrosian, who had led Armenia to independence in 1991, is a vocal critic of Pashinian, having branded the latter as a “nation-destroying scourge” in the wake of Armenia’s defeat in the 2020 war with Azerbaijan. He has repeatedly denounced Pashinian’s attempts to depose Garegin II, the supreme head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, prompting insults from the ruling Civil Contract party.
Karapetian was arrested and indicted just hours after criticizing Pashinian’s campaign last June. He was moved to house arrest in late December.