The main topic of discussion in politics of Armenia for the last week, which concerns the conflict between the RPA and PA, is no more a topic of active discussions.
“PA, as well as the LS, continue being the political partners of RPA,” said RPA spokesman Edward Sharmazanov following a recent session of the RPA. According to Sharmazanov, the RPA executive session which was moderated by RPA president Serzh Sargsyan, did not discuss any issues concerning excluding the PA from the coalition. According to the RPA spokesman, the party session discussed issues concerning organizing an economic conference on October 30.
Before the session the RPA members were disseminating rumors saying that during a future session the party would discuss the possibility of excluding the PA from the coalition. It is difficult to say why they disseminate such information and later refute. According to our information, during the party session a number of RPA representatives, including the prime-minister were told not to do such things anymore. According to the same sources of information, Serzh Sargsyan organized yesterday’s session in order to give a final answer to the mentioned rumors and tell certain members of the party to stay calm and not to initiate such things without prior approval. According to our sources, these rumors have been initiated by PM Tigran Sargsyan, who wants to create a ‘more favorable political environment for himself’. Tigran Sargsyan is currently busy with reuniting the broken parts of his former party NDU in order to make it serve for him as a political base in the future. Even more, he makes hints addressed at small parties to attract them to their side. According to the same source, the rumors about tense relations between the RPA and PA stem out from the same logic as the PM wants to open a new space for himself in the political environment through his new party project. According to the same source, by disseminating such rumors Tigran Sargsyan wanted to not only destruct the coalition but campaign against certain members of the RPA. Other members of the RPA became a victim of this initiative as well because during the past days they have been making contradicting statements in different media sources, thus appearing in a funny situation. If this information is true, it means nobody in the RPA controls the situation, and even the head of the RPA faction Galust Sahakyan does not know what is going on inside their party, and whether there is an issue of taking the PA out of the coalition. In fact the PM used the other MPs because they were making contradicting statements all the time. “When they were giving RPA party badges to Tigran Sargsyan and telling him to go and give to people in the regions, they should have not done that. This is where the mistakes come from because it made him think that he can manipulate the political processes,” said an old member of the RPA, who asked us not to publish his name. According to him, the rumors that Serzh Sargsyan has put an ultimatum against Gagik Tsarukyan demanding from him to commit that he will be endorsing his candidacy during the presidential election 2013 have been disseminated by the PM too. By doing this T. Sargsyan has the goal to stimulate the president to develop such ultimatum to Tsarukyan, which means that if the latter does not agree with that ultimatum, he will have to resign from the coalition. As T. Sargsyan knows that Tsarukyan is not going to make such announcement (he said that in February), and in consideration of the fact that the RPA people are not informed about the political processes and affairs within their party, T. Sargsyan disseminated those rumors and used them easily. As the MPs saw that the mentioned rumors had been disseminated by T. Sargsyan’s supporters, they thought it was a message for them and disseminated it. According to our sources, during the party session those who were connected with those rumors, including the faction head Galust Sahakyan, were reproved. He was instructed to closely follow the announcements of all faction members, including vice-speaker Samvel Nikoyan in order to exclude non-constructive statements on part of coalition members.
P.S. It is not excluded that the mentioned information on what has happened has been disseminated for certain purposes too. Even more, it may be an attempt to misrepresent the situation till the conflicts between the RPA and PA are resolved. However, as far as neither of the parties comes up with public announcement about these processes, such rumors will continue. And such rumors may be real and/or fake.