KOCHARIAN ‘WILL BECOME PRIME MINISTER AFTER RESIGNATION’
By Ruzanna Stepanian

Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
May 17 2006

President Robert Kocharian will be replaced by Defense Minister
Serzh Sarkisian and become prime minister after completing his second
five-year term in office in 2008, a controversial lawmaker reputedly
linked to the Armenian authorities claimed on Wednesday.

Hmayak Hovannisian presented to journalists what he called a scenario
drawn up by Armenia’s two most powerful men for the approaching
parliamentary and presidential elections. Under that scenario, he said,
Sarkisian will contest and secure victory in both polls, due in 2007
and 2008 respectively, on the ticket of the governing Republican Party
of Armenia (HHK) led by the current prime minister, Andranik Markarian.

“After the parliamentary elections Serzh Sarkisian will become prime
minister and Andranik Markarian speaker of the National Assembly,”
Hovannisian said. “What will Robert Kocharian do? Who else is to occupy
the post of prime minister when Serzh Sarkisian becomes president of
the republic?”

The Armenian constitution bars incumbent presidents from holding
the post for a third consecutive term and Kocharian has so far left
no indication that he will try find a legal loophole for contesting
the 2008 presidential ballot. But meeting with university students in
Yerevan last November, Kocharian admitted that he will not be averse
to continuing to run government affairs in a different capacity. “Who
is better than I in terms of knowledge, experience, hard work and
resilience?” he declared.

Some local analysts and politicians have speculated over the past
year that Kocharian is aiming for the post of prime minister, which he
had occupied for about a year before being catapulted to the Armenian
presidency in March 1998.

In Hovannisian’s words, helping Kocharian become prime minister is
the main mission of the ambitious Prosperous Armenia party that was
set up recently by Gagik Tsarukian, an influential “oligarch” close
to the ruling regime. He claimed that the authorities will ensure that
Prosperous Armenia, the HHK and another pro-establishment party linked
to Prosecutor-General Aghvan Hovsepian have an absolute majority in
the next parliament. Parliament speaker Artur Baghdasarian and his
Orinats Yerkir party have been forced out of the ruling coalition
because their far-reaching political ambitions endangered realization
of that scenario, said Hovannisian.

The Kocharian administration has assured the West that the upcoming
elections will be more democratic than the ones held until now. Such
assurances are brushed aside by opposition leaders who maintain that
Armenia’s post-Soviet history of electoral fraud will continue as long
as the Kocharian-Sarkisian duo remains in power. Some oppositionists
have threatened to boycott next year’s legislative vote, saying that
the authorities may have already predetermined its outcome.

They will likely take Hovannisian’s predictions seriously. The
ostensibly independent parliamentarian has a history of scandalous
defections from political parties opposed to successive Armenian
governments. He was elected to the current National Assembly from
the electoral list of the opposition National Unity Party (AMK)
in May 2003 but quit it a year later for still uncertain reasons.

AMK leader Artashes Geghamian has repeatedly accused Hovannisian
of secretly collaborating with Sarkisian, a view shared by other
politicians and journalists. Hovannisian, however, has flatly denied
this.