FRESH SPLITS IN ARMENIAN OPPOSITION THREATEN ITS EXISTENCE
by Natalia Leshchenko
Global Insight
October 2, 2007
The leader of the oppositional Orinats Yerkir party and the former
parliament speaker Artur Baghdasarian will stand in Armenia’s
forthcoming presidential election, Radio Liberty informs. This means
that Baghdasarian will not partake in any possible opposition effort
to put forward a single candidate to challenge Prime Minister Serzh
Sarkisian in the presidential elections due in February or March 2008.
Significance:Ruling out the prospect of joint opposition action
may seem reasonable from the Orinats Yerkir party’s perspective,
given that it showed the strongest performance of all the opposition
parties in May 2007 election, winning eight parliamentary seats. Yet,
it leaves the other parties with the rather dramatic and unpalatable
prospect of either backing Baghdasarian or effectively losing
any feasible possibility of a joint action. The single opposition
candidate tactic is not necessarily or unfailingly the winning one,
but the continuous bitter struggles in the opposition camp are a sure
sign of the dwindling importance and continued marginalisation of the
opposition. The elite contest is gradually shifting to within the real
power holders around the government, so that one could rather expect
the emergence of a new opposition–if acting within the government
and in a non-transparent way–rather than any success of the present
challengers of the authorities.