ORINATS YERKIR DOWNBEAT ON SINGLE OPPOSITION CANDIDATE
By Hovannes Shoghikian
Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
July 24 2007
Armenia’s fragmented opposition will fail to nominate a single
candidate for next year’s presidential election despite its leaders’
stated support for the idea, a top ally of former parliament speaker
Artur Baghdasarian predicted on Tuesday.
The country’s main opposition groups admit that their failure to
join forces was a key reason for their extremely poor showing in
the May 12 parliamentary elections. Their leaders agree that the
opposition will hardly fare better in the 2008 ballot if it fails to
form major electoral alliances. Some are understood to have already
begun discussing possible presidential candidacies.
"We welcome the notion that we must rally around a single candidate
to be able to meet challenges facing our country," said Hovannes
Markarian, a leading member of Baghdasarian’s Orinats Yerkir Party,
one of only two opposition forces represented in parliament.
"But given our experience, we know well that there will hardly be
a unification around one candidate and there will be two or three
[opposition] candidates at best," he said. "This is the lesser evil
which I would like to see."
Observers consider Baghdasarian to be among those opposition leaders
with presidential ambitions who are unlikely to quit the race and
endorse another opposition candidate. Markarian reinforced this
belief by strongly advocating Baghdasarian’s participation in the
presidential election. He said the ambitious ex-speaker possess all
necessary qualities of a prospective head of state.
"Artur Baghdasarian is known not only in our country but also outside
it," Markarian told a news conference.
He would not say whether Orinats Yerkir could endorse a possible
presidential bid by former President Levon Ter-Petrosian.
Ter-Petrosian’s candidacy is backed by several smaller pro-Western
opposition groups. However, the ex-presidential has so far left no
indication that he is ready his nearly decade-long silence and return
to active politics.