Aravot.am asked the political analyst Gagik Hambaryan whether according to his prediction the return of the second president of Armenia Robert Kocharyan is possible, and whether the latter will not meet the same resistance if he runs for presidential elections, as he himself did it with his team in 2008 towards the founder President of Armenia, Levon Ter-Petrosyan.
“In general, I must say that nominating of all candidates to the presidential elections is possible, nothing is impossible in politics, but the matter is that almost all of the candidates have their own obstructive issues. For Robert Kocharyan, these are March 1 events; this is the only disturbing and hindering factor for him. In other respects, he was quite successful President. Under his administration, we succeeded to record quite economic growth in Armenia. He managed to drive a complementary foreign policy. Let’s not talk about how it was allowed by Russia, it’s another matter, let’s alone state that he managed to keep Armenia-Iran, Armenia-West, Armenia-USA and Armenia-Russia relations in balance. Under Robert Kocharyan’s term, we had a pretty good relationship with the Diaspora, the most important aspect, a circle for us. Due to that, Robert Kocharyan managed to implement the famous “Lincy” project in Armenia, with which large investments were made in the disaster zone, housing sector, the roads across the Republic of Armenia were restored, Houses of Culture, and school building began, and other projects.
I repeat again, the only obstructing fact for Robert Kocharyan are March 1 events which is not yet a closed topic, and his opponents use just it because these events put all the blame on him,” says the political analyst.
According to him, if Robert Kocharyan attempts to nominate his candidacy at the presidential elections, he will surely meet resistance, because Serzh Sargsyan has his own candidate under consideration, who will be from acting authorities and will meet Serzh Sargsyan’s plans and objectives.
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“Levon Ter-Petrosyan, also, had great chances to organize a change of power through the square; however, he lost his chance. Ultimately, a few mass was present in his rallies and he failed to use this mass,” says Gagik Hambaryan.
To our question if Robert Kocharyan appears in the same situation, whether he will succeed to take the chair of the President, the political analyst said, “Given the strong manifestations of Robert Kocharyan that he is quite fond of power, he may be successful, why not? The power is very sweet and powerful, and there are very few people who can not pass over everything for the sake of power. It seems to me that Robert Kocharyan must first make his role clear regarding March 1 events, then to think about coming to power with his team.”
In the opinion of our interlocutor, Robert Kocharyan is not against Serzh Sargsyan, but the Prime Minister. And why he again remembered about the Prime Minister right away, in his opinion, this is due to Vladimir Putin’s visit to Armenia on December 2.
“Here, it is important to note that although the acting power is a great team; anyway, there are directions there: Robert Kocharyan presents the pro-Russian direction, and he certainly must strongly criticize the Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan for his pro-western and close relationships with the West. Also, the collision of external interest, in this case, is quite large,” says Gagik Hambaryan.
Nune AREVSHATYAN
