YEREVAN (RFE/RL) — Former President Levon Ter-Petrosian signaled over the weekend plans to participate in the upcoming parliamentary elections despite his failure to form an alliance with Armenia’s two other ex-presidents.
Ter-Petrosian’s Armenian National Congress (HAK) party held a congress in Yerevan to formulate a position on the elections slated for June 20. HAK representatives said the final decision will be made this week by a new party board chosen by the delegates.
“If the board decides to participate in the elections … then it’s clear that the duty to top the Congress’s electoral list will be imposed on me,” Ter-Petrosian said in a speech at the congress.
“It’s going to be difficult but the truth is that the Congress’s presence in the [new] parliament is necessary not least for ensuring … that the lantern of reason is not extinguished in the atmosphere of widespread cacophony,” he said.
He said the HAK’s key objective is to scuttle Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s reelection and at the same time prevent former President Robert Kocharyan from returning to power.
The HAK did not participate in the last parliamentary elections held in December 2018 six months after a “velvet revolution” that brought Pashinyan to power. It had failed to win any parliament seats in the previous polls held in 2017.
