Even though the spring session of the Armenian parliament has started, the dominating environment in the parliament is not the legislative work. Even though new laws are discussed and adopted in the parliament, most of job is done in the corridors and the rooms of MPs. The topics of discussion are the conflicts in the relations between the RPA and PA parties, i.e. the conflicts between the leaders of these two parties.
On Monday the RPA held a meeting during which the president of Armenia and RPA demanded from the leader of PA Gagik Tsarukyan to announce about his final decision on his political affiliation during the parliamentary and presidential elections 2012-2013. There were no official announcements about this meeting and every day the society receives new information and details concerning the meeting.
According to our information, the coalition session was planned to take place on Tuesday. Gagik Tsarukyan knew about it and decided to leave for Moscow the day before that. The PA is going to hold a general meeting next week and Tsarukyan wanted to postpone that meeting after their general meeting. Thus, the RPA decided to organize this coalition meeting on Monday and Tsarukyan was not able to escape from this meeting. On Monday, till the afternoon the main four representatives of the PA, NA deputy speaker Samvel Balasanyan, Gagik Tsarukyan, Aram Safaryan and Naira Zohrabyan were not present at the parliamentary session. This was the first day of the parliamentary spring session and their long absence was noticeable. It was impossible to talk to any PA representatives and ask anything about their internal affairs. According to our information, the coalition meeting was held in participation of 4 representatives from each of the coalition parties. The representatives of the RPA were the president Serzh Sargsyan, prime-minister Tigran Sargsyan, NA speaker Hovik Abrahamyan and the head of the president’s administration Karen Karapetyan. The Legal State was represented by the party chairman Artur Baghdasaryan, Heghine Bisharyan, Mher Shahgeldyan and one more person.
According to our information, during the coalition meeting Serzh Sargsyan took out an announcement and without any formalities put it on the table and told the PA leader either to sign it or resign from the coalition. The meaning of the announcement is the PA’s commitment to run with the RPA in a bloc during the upcoming parliamentary elections and endorse president Sargsyan during the presidential election 2013. The session proceeded in a very tense environment and eventually Gagik Tsarukyan was able to delay the signing of the announcement till this Friday. The parliamentarians say that if Serzh Sargsyan takes part in the PA’s general meeting on Saturday, it means the PA leader has signed the memorandum; otherwise the PA will have to resign from the coalition. MPs that are informed about this meeting say that what Tsarukyan wanted to do is to stay in the coalition till the end of this spring and not to express any commitment to endorse president Sargsyan during the next presidential election. This situation would be the most favorable situation for the PA. Before the parliamentary elections they could use the administrative and financial resources, and later after leaving the coalition they would get more credits. If the PA resigns now, in one year it cannot be able to use these administrative resources for campaigning purpose. Certainly the RPA is not interested in giving this opportunity to the PA. The PA representatives understand what will happen to them if they leave the coalition; they will have the same destiny as the Legal State party. They can ask Samvel Balasanyan to see how it feels like to leave form the coalition as a result of such conflicts.
Some media sources published information that following this meeting Gagik Tsarukyan left for Moscow. Some newspapers also published information that the former president Robert Kocharyan was there too. Even the Regnum has published such information by referring to their sources. Yesterday the government representatives refused to give any comments about Robert Kocharyan’s interview to the Mediamax. There are rumors that this tension is not due to the conflicts between the RPA and PA but conflicts between Kocharyana and Sargsyan. According to these rumors, Robert Kocharyan wants to become prime-minister and all these confusions are a result of these attempts. Even there are opinions that with his interview Robert Kocharyan sent a message about returning to active politics. Besides that he also openly protected Gagik Tsarukyan. To note, before all these confusions in the political sector Gagik Tsarukyan had announced that if Kocharyan had wanted he would become either the chairman of deputy chairman of the RPA. With his interview and announcement, in which Kocharyan said that “all names in the electoral lists in 2003 and 2007” had been agreed with him, he reaffirmed that he backed Tsarukyan and he had been standing behind Tsarukyan’s announcement and it had been agreed with him. It is not excluded that in the future they may discover new information too. Besides that, the RPA MP reminded him about the October 27. As the Armenian politicians like to say, the ball is in Kocharyan’s field and it is his turn to play now.