The elections to the National Assembly, the parliament of the country, were held on May, 6 in Armenia. Arman Gevorgyan, Armenian political scientist, commented the results of the elections for Vestnik Kavkaza.
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In his view, the big surprise was that the "Rule of Law” party overcame the 5 percent barrier and entered the National Assembly. "Personally, I thought that it would not receive more than two percent of the vote, given the steps made by the leader of the party after the 2008 presidential election. He seemed to have completely lost his electorate. Then in 2008 he won 16% of the vote. These parliamentary elections demonstrated that there is still more than 5% of the voters who trust Artur Baghdasaryan," Arman Gevorgyan said.
The results of the other political forces came as no surprise. "The ruling Republican Party of Armenia, which has the largest resources, used it and took first place”.
At the same time, what causes frustration is the fact that the face of this party is President Serzh Sargsyan. It turned out that all the issues were represented by the president, suggesting that the Republican Party has merely turned into a monopoly, into a presidential party. The RPA now is different from the RPA of the 90's, because it is obvious that the Republican Party then was not a one-man party," the analyst says.
Arman Gevorkian mentioned another very important fact - the Republican Party has managed to take 50% plus one mandate, which means that the Republican Party has an opportunity to form a government without looking to the other parties in the National Assembly.
According to the analyst, "Prosperous Armenia" showed “a strong performance”, getting twice as many votes than in the previous elections, although the party, “of course, hoped for better results."
Arman Gevorgyan, however, said that it is difficult to predict whether this party will agree to form a coalition with the Republican Party, as it did in 2007. In his opinion, it first of all needs an invitation from the Republican party to form such a coalition, which is still questionable. “The RPA has a stable majority; moreover, it may form a coalition together with more docile counterparts with much smaller requirements. For example, we can talk about the "Rule of Law" party or "Legacy", which can simply add to Republican votes in the parliament without putting forward any particular political claims," the Armenian political scientist said.
Talking about the results of a potential coalition to “Prosperous Armenia”, Arman Gevorgyan said that it might put the party in a difficult situation with its electorate: "If the PAP enters the ruling coalition, it gets a problem with those who voted for the PAP as an alternative, though not as the opposition, but as an alternative to the authorities. Will the voters understand this? This is a very serious problem.”
“It should be noted that the opposition may also be different, it can be quite constructive, or very tough and radical. It is not clear which choices will be made by the PAP."
The prospects for the radical opposition, represented by the Armenian National Congress, that has overcame the 7% barrier, is described by Arman Gevorgyan as “not very successful”. "In order to continue to retain its political potential, the ANC must decide questions of financing. Their funding was insufficient. And this is a very important question that probably should be addressed. I guess that the ANC would be a real effective opposition to the ruling Republican Party."
The expert believes that, after such a result in the parliamentary elections, the leader of the ANC - former president Levon Ter-Petrosyan - will be nominated for the presidential elections in 2013. According to him, a decision on this issue will probably become known by the end of the summer.
Another opposition party, ARF "Dashnaktsutiun", in comparison with 2007 has lost more than half of its seats (it got 6 instead of 16). "The ARF was able to withdraw from the ruling coalition, and it took two years to regain the confidence of at least some of their constituents. I'm guessing that the ARF will remain in opposition to gain points for its political future," the expert said.
Arman Gevorgyan added that the result of the parliamentary elections show that president Serzh Sarkissian strengthened his position in the political system of the country before the presidential election in 2013: "If no major force interferes, Serzh Sargsyan has a very good chance of staying in office for a second term."
Susanna Petrosian in Yerevan. Specially for Vestnik Kavkaza
