It’s quite understandable what the governmental parties are doing closer to elections by holding pre-election charity actions day and night, holding meetings in the regions and organizing various events. However, it’s quite unclear what the opposition is doing now. It seems besides strengthening their branch offices they don’t do anything else. At least this is what the opposition parties are claiming.
However, quite recently rumors were spread in the media, by which the opposition holds mysterious meetings in the regions in order to make a joint opposition proportional list. They are trying to make those meetings as secret as possible before elections. Of course, the opposition denied those rumors about mysterious meetings out of town and they claim that their meetings are held in the city and are quite open and transparent. But the fact is that none of the media representatives were invited.
Nevertheless, we succeeded in finding out when and what exactly the opposition was speaking about. In fact those meetings are taking place in Yerevan at the party headquarters of the “Heritage” party, which host several opposition leaders – chair of Heritage party, Raffi Hovhannisyan, chair of Republic party, Aram Sargsyan, chair of NDU party, Vazgen Manukyan and chair of PPA, Stepan Demirchyan. Their first meeting took place on February 9 at the party office of Heritage. In order to keep the meeting secret they decided not to publicize anything in advance. According to our information during the first meeting Sargsyan offered to form an equal political bloc, where all the represented parties will have 25 seats respectively. However Sargsyan’s suggestion was only supported by Hovhannisyan and Manukyan. Demirchyan said that there was certain pressure on him within PPA, by which they insist they PPA go to elections on its own. Later he said that PPA will agree to be in the bloc if the latter agrees with the two preconditions of the PPA members. Thus, the first precondition of PPA is that Demirchyan must occupy the first place in the proportional list of the bloc. The second precondition is that 60 seats of the list must be given to PPA members, the rest 60 must be distributed among the three other opposition parties of the bloc – Heritage, Republic and NDU. After mentioning those preconditions Demirchyan said that he won’t be able to join the bloc if those preconditions are not accepted. Manukyan opposed this by saying that if the seats are not equally distributed they will have to form a bloc without PPA. This statement slightly intimidated Demirchyan, who said that there is no need to rush with decisions and offered to meet once again in three days on February 12 at Heritage office.
According to the agreement on February 12 the meeting took place but this time instead of Aram Sargsyan Smbat Ayvazyan was present. This time again they started to speak about the equal conditions within the bloc. Demirchyan didn’t like it. In an hour he left the party office of Heritage. After he left Hovhannisyan, Manukyan and Ayvazyan continued the discussion themselves. However, Ayvazyan offered to expand the circle of participants of the discussion by inviting the chair of the New Times Party, Aram Karapetyan. But Manukyan was against Karapetyan’s involvement not only because he’s pro-Russian but also because his ideology is too far from theirs. Later he said that he’d cope with Karapetyan’s participation only if Karapetyan announces and promises that he’s not going to be nominated during presidential elections. Hovhannisyan also agreed with Manukyan so Ayvazyan wasn’t able to persist on his intention. Ayvazyan also offered to involve a few ANM members within the alliance. Manukyan this time didn’t mind but offered to discuss ANM members one by one. Later after that Ayvazyan once again offered Karapetyan’s candidature, however without results. This is how the February 12 meeting ended.
During this period they tried to conduct separate negotiations with the loyalists of Demirchyan. They met PPA member Paylak Urusyan and Justice faction representative in the CEC, Felix Khachatryan. They promised to once again seriously speak with Demirchyan and before the PPA congress inform the Republic party.
But prior to receiving an answer from the PPA about the negotiations Aram Karapetyan decides to find out everything himself and undertakes certain steps by personally uniting opposition parties. That’s the reason why on February 14 certain opposition leaders gathered in a restaurant in Davitashen. Thus it’s not excluded that a competition will start among opposition blocs. The most interesting thing is that the oppositionists fight not against the government but each other. And as we know only 86 days are left before elections.
P.S. Today during the PPA congress it will become clear whether the PPA will join the Hovhannisyan-Sargsyan-Manukyan alliance. According to our information PPA has decided to participate in the elections on its own.