Ex-President Kocharyan announces bid for prime minister

The opposition Armenia Alliance has announced that it will take part in the parliamentary elections, with ex-President Robert Kocharyan as its candidate for prime minister. Kocharyan also ran as the bloc’s prime ministerial candidate in 2021.

Armenia is set to hold its parliamentary elections on 7 June.

Kocharyan’s candidacy was announced in a major event organised by the bloc on Monday evening in Yerevan.

The Armenia Alliance will consist of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) and Araj (Forward) party, with the  campaign slogan ‘Together we can’.

Formed in 2021, the alliance consisted of the ARF and the Reborn Armenia party. Led by Kocharyan, the bloc received 21 % of the vote in the 2021 snap parliamentary elections held after Armenia’s defeat in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, as political tensions remained high in the country.

Later, the Reborn Armenia party announced it was leaving parliament in November 2022.

In his Monday speech, Kocharyan expressed their determination to win elections, adding that he was confident that ‘the evil embodied by [Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s] government will be defeated’.

‘I have been fighting against them since the very first day they came to power. I will not rest until they are removed. But that is not enough. Those responsible for the deaths of our thousands of heroes and for surrendering Artsakh [Nagorno-Karabakh] must also be held accountable’, Kocharyan said.

Kocharyan is originally from Nagorno-Karabakh, took part in the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, and led the region until he moved to Armenia and led the country first as prime minister and then as a president from  1998-2008.

The end of his tenure was marked with a deadly crackdown on a post-election protest on 1 March 2008, in which the opposition insisted that the election results were rigged.  In the ensuing crackdown, 10 people were killed, including two police officers.

After Pashinyan came to power, Kocharyan and other former officials were placed on trial for their alleged role in the violent crackdown, which made headlines in Armenia. However, he and others were acquitted of the charges in March 2021 after the Constitutional Court declared that it was unconstitutional to charge the former officials with ‘overthrowing the constitutional order’.

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 neutralise 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-organised 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.