- Shoghik Galstian
- Gayane Saribekian
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said on Friday that Armenia’s three main opposition forces must win no seats in the new National Assembly and at least one of their leaders will go to jail if he wins Sunday’s parliamentary elections.
Pashinian again branded them as foreign, presumably Russian, spies as he addressed thousands of supporters rallying in Yerevan’s central Republic Square on the last day of campaigning for the elections.
“The three-headed party of war and their tails should not enter parliament, this is a matter of the dignity of the Armenian people,” he said. “Those spy networks, those forces that think they can buy the people must be brought to their knees on that voting day.”
Pashinian went on to declare that “right after the elections” former President Robert Kocharian will be arrested again for his role in a 2008 post-election unrest in Yerevan. He also pledged to strip the leaders of the two other major opposition contenders, businessmen Samvel Karapetian and Gagik Tsarukian, of their key assets in Armenia.
All three opposition leaders are already facing criminal proceedings on various charges rejected by them as politically motivated. Pashinian pledged to “take out” them during the election campaign. Karapetian’s Strong Armenia alliance, Kocharian’s Hayastan bloc and Tsarukian’s Prosperous Armenia Party say his threats as well as pre-election mass detentions of their supporters exposed his fears of losing power.
As Hayastan wrapped up its campaign with an indoor meeting in Yerevan Kocharian insisted that the three opposition groups have a “great chance” to collectively win a majority in the Armenian parliament and oust Pashinian.
“Are we defending or betraying our history, our identity, our value system?” the ex-president appealed to voters. “Are we preserving our sovereignty, or will we become an appendage of the Turkic world and do their will?”
“I want to call on our people: give us your five minutes at polling stations and we will give you a prosperous life and strong Armenia,” Karapetian said, for his part, in a video message.
The Russian-Armenian billionaire widely regarded as Pashinian’s number one challenger remains under house arrest and has therefore not been able to physically attend his bloc’s campaign rallies.
—