In an interview with Aravot.am, political scientist Gagik Hambaryan qualified the return of Gagik Tsarukyan to politics as a planned operation by the authorities. “The authorities realized that by pushing Gagik Tsarukyan out of the political arena, they will create more problems for themselves. This opposition electorate which had united around Gagik Tsarukyan, one can say, was not distributed between the opposition and also pro-government forces, it remained barren and indifferent to political processes. And the authorities here could have very big problems during the elections as it happened during the last presidential elections when Serzh Sargsyan directly cleared the political field from his main opponents.
And the society having no appropriate candidate whom they would like to choose voted all for Raffi Hovannisian. Everybody knew very well that they were not Raffi Hovannisian’s votes, they were the votes of the opposition electorate which having no appropriate candidate voted for Raffi Hovannisian. The same thing can happen in this elections and contains an awfully big risk because the authorities have no hope or fear that they will not make the respective number of majority in the National Assembly and will not be able to form a one-man government. Here, a question will arise as to who will cooperate with the authorities.
Without having an adequate predictable partner, the authorities organized the return of Tsarukyan operation. Everyone knows very well that in spite of personal insults that were addressed by the government and specifically Serzh Sargsyan to Gagik Tsarukyan, the latter, willy-nilly, is well accepted by the society. The examples and evidence are numerous. Gagik Tsarukyan’s return indeed has a very big impact on the rearrangement of the political spectrum. I do not know whether Gagik Tsarukyan will participate in the elections under the PAP logo or will form a separate alliance, for example, “Tsarukyan” alliance, but the point that he will have a very big impact on the parliamentary elections, it is a fact.
In other words, he attracts the votes of the opposition electorate which can pass to the political forces that are unpredictable for the authorities,” said the political scientist. We were also curious to know whether they will use Tsarukyan’s return to lessen the RPA rating list because the party adherent has come out against its party adherent, the friend – against his friend, and a quite unpleasant situation has been created. “In my opinion, RPA will not lessen its list, this is a problematic issue. This Anschlag that exists as it is used to say in many cases in the rating list when very well known and reputable people from the same marz and the same city appear on the list which causes worsening of their one-man relations will remain unchanged.
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Withdrawal from RPA list will also be accepted badly by the society, this will be qualified as a rat race and will be a great blow to PAP that PAP enrolls “needless and upset” mass in its ranks. RPA, more precisely to say, Serzh Sargsyan has placed one goal in front of him: to ensure a vote for the “Republican” party at any cost. And Serzh Sargsyan does not care, for example, what relationships will the 15 people on the RPA list in Shirak Marz have in the future. Serzh Sargsyan does not care about it at all, he just wants to ensure adequate votes for his dear party and to see what rating high-positions-holding people and directors of huge enterprises have with the society who have declared over the years that they have ensured adequate votes for Serzh Sargsyan (as it turned out in Shirak Marz that nothing was ensured, they were casting the blame on each other about who had done a poor job). Automatically, Serzh Sargsyan therewith tests the politicians who were getting the use of the government in all senses. Eventually, it is a big thing to be the director of an enterprise with 500-600 employees, automatically, they must bring at least 3000-3500 votes for Serzh Sargsyan because they were appointed a director by his approval and they must ensure these votes, if not they will say a good-bye to them.”
