“During the Parliamentary elections the main electoral struggle will proceed between the RPA and the Prosperous Armenia parties of Armenia. Those two parties together will enter the parliament and form a coalition by joining a smaller party supposedly the Dashnaktsutyun,” according to the Liberty radio channel, reads the report of the “Economist Intelligence Unit”. The authors of the report united a few possible scenarios. The most probable one is the following, “The RPA and the Prosperous Armenia may make a covert deal before the elections not to run against each other in the same districts during the campaign by maximally increasing their chances to make a majority after elections. This scenario also includes dividing the outcome after the elections. As Robert Kocharyan doesn’t have a chance to run for the third term and as Serge Sargsyan has always been considered as an evident successor of Kocharyan, the positions of the NA Speaker and the Prime Minister will be given to the Prosperous Armenia.”
The “Economist Intelligence Unit” also offers an alternative scenario, “The Prosperous Armenia feels that it has sufficient support to gain seats at the Parliament and decided to more openly compete with the Republicans. The prospects of free and fair elections, which are not very great even now, will be diminished even more by this scenario because the political elite connected with the RPA will do its best to protect its interests. Nevertheless after the elections the two parties will anyway make an agreement to form a coalition.” “The competition between the Prosperous Armenia and the RPA will decide not only who’s going to make the majority at the Parliament but also whose candidate is going to win in the Presidential elections. As Kocharyan cannot be nominated the space is open for Sargsyan. However the rapid development of the Prosperous Armenia Party last year slightly weakened the positions of Sargsyan. If the Prosperous Armenia does a good job during elections and wins through fair and free elections Sargsyan’s positions will be even more enervated. Another possible version is that after Sargsyan is elected President he will appoint Kocharyan a Prime Minister. And the rumors that Prosperous Armenia was established to support Sargsyan during Presidential elections also becomes easy to believe,” writes the “Economist Intelligence Unit”. As of the opposition the whole last year it was busy with making efforts to form alliances and blocs, however those turned to be unfruitful. Without such alliances the opposition has a little chance for victory during elections. “It is only the Legal State Party which has more or less more chances to have victory during elections on its won,” writes the report. It also adds that the party undoubtedly has support from a certain part of the society, however another part is disappointed because they have been in government for three years and have not satisfied them.
“The Western governments are going to carefully keep track on electoral processes of Armenia because of the notorious reputation of the previous elections of Armenia when none of the international monitors thought those were free and fair,” write the authors of the report. According to them the US and the Council of Europe have clearly made Armenian understand that the continuity of their financial support depends on the fair conduct of elections. The government of Armenia has numerously promised that the elections are going to be free and fair but the opposition keeps insisting the opposite. “The fact that during their two last visits to Armenia the top officials of the OSCE were not able to meet President Kocharyan makes the persistence of the opposition more truthful,” concluded the authors of the report.