Will Tsarukyan unseat Pashinyan?

 Leader of Prosperous Armenia party Gagik Tsarukyan called on Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to seek those counterrevolutionary people in his own team, commenting Pashinyan's statement that the Republican Party of Armenia and the facilitating forces have declared the counter-revolution.

"Mr. Prime Minister should seek those counterrevolutionary people in his [own political] team," Tsarukyan said.

The leader of Prosperous Armenia party added that he will meet with the country’s extra-parliamentary forces, with those that have not collaborated with second and third Presidents Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan, respectively.

The MP assured that even if they were part of the government before, this has changed nothing for him.

When asked whether this means that he has not joined the 'counterrevolution', Tsarukyan responded: "I have been for the revolution, and I will do more today; the accountability is upon me. Five thousand investors are coming [to Armenia] from 25 countries for investments."

The MP explained that the flow of investors into Armenia has stopped not because there is no snap parliamentary election in the country yet, but for a completely different reason.

The leader of Prosperous Armenia party noted that his faction had allocated one-third of the votes needed for Pashinyan to be elected PM in the National Assembly, in the case when he could have nominated his own candidacy to this office.

Tsarukyan also stressed that it is impossible to single-handedly carry out a revolution.  "The people want it [the snap parliamentary election] in December, so we want [it] too; we have no such problem," the leader of Prosperous Armenia party concluded.

Ex-mayor of Yerevan Vahagn Khachatryan, speaking with Vestnik Kavkaza, noted that Tsarukyan's struggle against Pashinyan is only surface, and after some time, the Prosperous Armenia party will still support Yelk’s demand to hold early parliamentary elections in December. "I think that they will ultimately support Pashinyan's initiative. There is no logic in this conflict after the Prosperous Armenia party supported Nikol Pashinyan’s candidature at the PM elections and the velvet revolution as a whole. Still, the Prosperous Armenia party will go to early elections, which will surely take place as the people and interests of the Armenian state demand. I am sure that Gagik Tsarukyan and his party will not be against holding elections in December - by the way, in the same interview he said that he was not against Pashinyan’s demand," Khachatryan stressed.

The former head of Yerevan recalled that in the post-revolutionary conditions, the Prosperous Armenia party has remained a "party of one person" - of Gagik Tsarukyan. "It became especially clear after the elections to the post of Yerevan mayor, where the  Prosperous Armenia party's candidate almost had no support - it is clear now that the Pashinyan party has no political alternative in Armenia. Unfortunately, there was no alternative to the party of Sargsyan before, now there is no alternative to the party of Pashinyan," he concluded.