Not only the 'party of war' of Sargsyan and Kocharyan – the Republican Party of Armenia – but also its permanent ally, ARF Dashnaktsutyun was among political forces, which lost the 'velvet revolution' in Armenia. The Dashnaks, formally unrelated to the Karabakh clan, are trying to settle a score with their ancient opponents by putting pressure on Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
In particular, recently head of the Civic Platform initiative group Aghvan Poghosyan wrote on his Facebook’s page about the ex-ARF chairman Rouben Hakobian’s desire to see Armenia's first president Levon Ter-Petrosian in jail, to whom the Dashnaks lost the 1991 presidential election (Ter-Petrosyan won with 83% of the vote, at a turnout of 70%, while the ARF's Sos Sargsyan – only 4.3%). As a pretext to imprison him, Hakobian suggested that Pashinyan should reconsider the results of the 1996 second election, when Ter-Petrosyan won with a minimum result of 51.3% with a turnout of 60.3% (the ARF did not participate then).
"Yesterday, a former member of the National Assembly Ruben Hakobian published the U.S. State Department's 1996 Human Rights Report. In particular, the report touched upon the violence and cruelty on the part of the authorities against opposition members and demonstrators that took place in the post-election period. The reports stressed that Levon Ter-Petrosyan was re-elected as a result of controversial elections, which were marked by a number of illegal actions and serious violations of the electoral law," Poghosyan reports.
"In general, speaking of committing electoral fraud, beating demonstrators and violating constitutional order, these processes were initiated by falsifying the 1996 elections, as there are comments from the Ter-Petrosian team's members. In particular, Vano Siradeghyan and Karapet Rubinyan said that the elections were rigged. There are grounds and facts that could result in criminal proceedings concerning violation of constitutional order and election fraud," the head of the Civil Platform cites Hakobian's words.
Then, the former ARF head tries to draw an analogy with the criminal prosecution of second president Robert Kocharyan, who came to power in 1998 after Ter-Petrosian’s resignation (due to the Karabakh clan’s unwillingness to follow Ter-Petrosian’s plan to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict) to put in jail the first president, who is Nikol Pashinyan’s political mentor.
"Why should they be shy of these facts if the Special Investigation Service is preparing materials based on Shirkhanyan's open letter to initiate criminal proceedings in the 1998 elections? One can go back two years ago and fully disclose the falsified elections. The ball is on Nikol Pashinyan’s court. and now he has to prove that his actions are really based on the state's interests and don't conceal political persecution and revenge," Rouben Hakobian concluded.