The main topic of political discussions is formation of a new government. In fact the RPA does not have to make coalition with any powers. In politics usually it is accepted that powers make coalition when their country is in emergency situation (war or crisis) or neither of the parties running in elections has been able to make majority in the parliament.
At least formally we are not in war, and if we believe the government, the crisis has been overcome too. The RPA has more seats in this parliament than in the previous one. In the last parliament the RPA had 62 seats. There were other MPs that were supporting the RPA too. Examples are Samvel Alexanyan, Lyova Khachatryan, Zohrab Zohrabyan and Mkhitar Varagyan. De-facto the National Unity party member Ara Simonyan was supporting the RPA too. In other words, the RPA had the necessary number of votes to be able to pass any bills and laws in the parliament.
The RPA will have 69 seats in the new parliament. This is officially, but there will be others supporting them too. For adopting any bills 66 votes are enough, thus the RPA does not need any additional support. Any time they need a hand, they have the Legal State at hand.
Recently RPA representative Manvel Badeyan, who was elected under majoritarian system, announced that the RPA did not need any coalition. Specifically he said that the RPA had enough resources not to make a coalition. Badeyan said that they would listen to the opinions of others too but said that they had majority in the parliament and did not need a coalition.
In this case Badeyan means the PA because for the other parties that had hardly overcome the limit of 5% he compared them with small puppies. Specifically he said that there was a type of dogs, which were small but thought they were tough, thus they would constantly get in trouble because of that. “They must get used to the fact that they are small puppies. They must get used to the fact that they have received so few votes and do not have more chances and it doesn’t matter how much they want it. They’d do better if they calculate their possibilities well because they cannot be compared with the RPA,” said M.Badeyan. If we follow his logic, it means that the RPA and PA are big dogs.
In politics usually coalition types are the following: majority coalition, national unity coalition (it has nothing to do with Artashes Geghamyan’s party) and co-living. The first one is that when parties with majority of votes form a coalition. The proportion of votes shows that the RPA leaders do not want this. However, the PA representatives are behaving differently. For example, the healthcare minister Harutyun Kushkyan has dropped his mandate, which means that he will continue being the minister. In case of national unity coalition all powers that have passed in the parliament have to make a coalition, which is impossible and senseless in Armenia in this situation. The co-living coalition is made when the party of the incumbent president loses the votes and the president has to appoint PM from another party. For example, this kind of thing happened in France in 1997. This version is not applicable for Armenia either.
The Legal State party will be a part of the coalition for sure. It is not because the RPA needs them, but due to the same reason why they were allowed to overcome the limit of 5%. Another option that is being discussed concerns inclusion of Heritage party in the coalition.
In a word, neither of those classic methods of forming a coalition will be applicable for the new parliament. To say in Manvel Badeyan’s words, it will be like “big dogs + puppies” or “a big dog + a puppy”. This will be formally, but in the real life only one big dog will have real influence in the parliament. The platforms of the parties that have been elected in the parliament do not open any prospects for a coalition because the pre-election platforms of all parties, including that of the RPA, were against the RPA. The parties that were in the same coalition with the RPA during the past five years forgot about this fact before the elections. Even though the LS and PA were part of the coalition too, the mainstream of critics was addressed at the RPA only. Specifically, the opposition ANC power forgot about the fact that the PA had portfolios in the same government they were standing against. Vartan Oskanyan did not remember about it and criticized only the RPA. The Legal State did not criticize the RPA directly but their platform and speeches contained critics concerning exchange rates, monopolies and other institutional malformations and one listening to them would not ever think that they had been a part of the same government.
As of the RPA, then in its platform the party only speaks only on its behalf. Moreover, when speaking of the achievements the RPA was only mentioning itself and not a word about the rest of the coalition partners. For example they would say, “We added the subsidies, benefits.” Or there is another one, “we essentially curtailed the administrative hurdles and paperwork of running a business.” So the RPA thought that all the criticism is going to be addressed to them then the laurels should be challenged to them as well. But if we speak about the national interest for the moment we should ask ourselves which of the versions is more of the people’s benefit? In general, there is no actual difference. The platforms are similar. Of course, one of them discussed those with the residents, the other – had it developed by international specialists. The platforms of the RPA, PAP and Legal State almost have no contradictions content-wise. And the rest depends on the internal political ambitions.