Political analyst says another early election possible in Armenia in 12-18 months

YEREVAN, July 12. /ARKA/. Two opposition alliances, led by ex-president of Armenia Robert Kocharyan and former chief of the National Security Service Artur Vanetsyan will eventually go to parliament, but the political crisis has not gone anywhere, Director of the Caucasus Institute Alexander Iskandaryan said at a press conference on Monday.

The opposition alliance Hayastan (Armenia) led by Robert Kocharyan and another alliance called Pativ Unem (I have the honor), led by ex directopr of the National Security Council Artur Vanetsyan as well as two smaller parties groups appealed last Friday to the Constitutional Court  contesting the results of the June 20 snap elections to parliament after the Central Election Commission (CEC) refused to annul the vote results.

“Even if the Constitutional Court delivers a ruling that will be more exotic than I can imagine, I don’t think that it can really change the political reality. I don’t think that it would be profitable for the opposition parties to boycott the parliament’s work," Iskandaryan said.

According to him, legally, the parliament will be the same as the previous one - one party controls almost 2/3 of the seats and has a majority. "But if you look at its  composition, the current opposition parties are very different, because the previous opposition parties supported Pashinyan during the 2018 velvet revolution and one of them was in the coalition government. They were not fake parties, but they played an opposition and in fact, they were associated with the Pashinyan regime," Iskandaryan said.

According to him, the new opposition is somewhat different and the new parliament will represent society more broadly than before; there is a certain number of people in society who quite radically reject Pashinyan and they are represented in parliament.

‘The society is polarized and split, the parliament too,’ he said.

According to Iskandaryan, the opposition parties are unlikely to be able to seriously influence politics, but "there will be discourses within parliament and the confrontation from the streets will go to parliament,  and accusations will constant."

“I can imagine early elections in 1-1.5 years, because the political crisis has not gone away, the Karabachos issue has not disappeared at all, "Iskandaryan said.

However, according to him, in general, it will be problematic for the authorities to continue to exist, since all the problems remain. "At the moment they have bureaucratic legitimacy, but the split in society will probably grow," Iskandaryan said.

Acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party won 53.91% of the votes in the June 20 snap parliamentary elections and will control 71 seats in the new National Assembly.

The Hayastan (Armenia) alliance, headed by a former president Robert Kocharyan (21.09% of votes) will control 29 seats and another alliance called Pativ Unem (I Have the Honor) (5.22%), led by Artur Vanetsyan, former chief of the National Security Service, will have 7 seats.