Ex-President Kocharyan Announces Bid for Prime Minister

The court’s decision was then overturned in September 2024 and sent to the Anti-Corruption Court for a new examination. Kocharyan was again charged two months later for abuse of power.

In his Monday speech, Kocharyan said that ‘security remains one of Armenia’s main challenges,” highlighting the need for “a capable army, strong leadership, and powerful allies so that together we can neutralize all threats.”

He added that his bloc ‘support[s] peace with Azerbaijan,” but stressed that it “must be based on genuine security guarantees,” without further elaboration.

On Armenia’s foreign policy, Kocharyan stated that it “must be predictable, understandable, and reject any attempt to exploit great powers’ rivalries.”

“Our goal is to make Armenia the most efficient and best-organized state in the South Caucasus.”

Aside from the Armenia Alliance, the ruling Civil Contract party’s main opponent in the upcoming election is expected to be the Russian–Armenian tycoon Samvel Karapetyan’s newly formed Strong Armenia party.

In addition, tycoon Gagik Tsarukyan, the leader of another opposition group — the Prosperous Armenia party — vowed to build a political “Noah’s Ark.”

The former ruling Republican Party and its leader, former president Serzh Sargsyan, ousted during the 2018 Velvet Revolution, have yet to declare whether they will participate in the elections.

Civil Contract, which vowed to secure a constitutional majority in the elections, also warned that the opposition intends to come to power through a coalition formed after the vote.

(This article originally appeared on www.oc-media.org on March 17.)