Fragmenting “unity”

One of the key questions of the launch of the fall political life is the possibility of nomination of a joint candidate from the opposition for the presidential elections 2013. This topic will most probably be discussed till the last day of nomination of presidential candidates and even perhaps after that. The government might view it as one of the fragmenting factors of opposition unity. The topic of a joint opposition candidate is artificial because the desire of each opposition force to come up with a joint candidate is as artificial.

The Armenian National Congress, for example, doesn’t exclude the possibility of nominating a joint candidate in person of Levon Ter-Petrosyan or in case of desirable scenario they might even endorse a Prosperous Armenia candidate. In the same manner, this topic is being discussed within the Heritage. They joint candidate might be Raffi Hovhannisian. The ARF also fits into this theme to the extent as whether it supports the return of Robert Kocharyan or the unity of the candidate of Kocharyan’s team.

Among other reasons the theme of a joint candidate is fake because the hundreds of the abovementioned forces have as much hostility and intolerance to each other as they have to Serzh Sarsgyan and his team. It means that if we theoretically imagine that the joint candidate becomes Levon Ter-Petrosyan and wins the elections then for Raffi Hovhannisian he’s as undesirable as Serzh Sargsyan.

The same can be said for Ter-Petrosyan in the event of Hovhannisian’s victory. In case of Robert Kocharyan, this factor is even more highlighted. He is unacceptable for all and all are unacceptable for him. His candidacy might become acceptable only in the case of foreign policy complications, which are beyond the internal intolerance and political principles. In a word, the theme of a joint candidate under the current Armenian circumstances is not only artificial but also absurd. In that case why do they still discuss that? It would be clear if only the governmental candidates spoke about this idea. For the government this topic is always beneficial because they are gaining certain dividends from the opposition scuffle. However, almost all the opposition parties are speaking about this – ANC, Heritage, ARF. However, for the sake of honesty, they should have stated that this discussion is pointless because of the mentioned reasons.

Then, why doesn’t the opposition close this topic? Perhaps the reason is that after the NA elections, after receiving their “portion” of power they have realized that they don’t have too many chances during the presidential race. And currently they are only occupied with political trade in order to have their shares during the division of the power pie after the presidential elections 2013. By the way, the topic of a joint candidate is becoming a key one within the government as well. Currently the government is busy trying to make Serzh Sargsyan a joint candidate from the RPA and Prosperous Armenia. The difference is that the search of the opposition joint candidate may even more reduce the possibility for the opposition to go into the second round of elections.