With less than two years remaining before the parliamentary elections in Armenia, the opposition parties start to mobilize forces and declare their policies. Thus, the opposition Heritage Party held its extraordinary congress on July 10, and the non-parliamentary Armenian National Movement (ANM), which stood at the sources of independent Armenia, plans its convention for July 17.


Judging by the fact that Heritage elected its founder and leader, first Foreign Minister of Armenia Raffi Hovannisian as chairman of the party’s board, the party is going to engage in a serious struggle for the presidency and parliamentary seats during the next elections. The party has proclaimed its policy, which reflects positions on foreign-policy and domestic issues. Some points of the party program have become news on the political agenda.

In particular, Heritage believes that the nation-state of Armenia should seek the recognition of Turkey’s territorial integrity within the borders outlined in 1920 by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson. The party suggests Armenia recognize the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic within its constitutional borders. From this point of view, the Heritage positions may have something in common with the approaches of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF, Dashnaktsutyun), which advances nationalist goals.

Thus, Heritage calls on Armenia and the Diaspora to build a modern, democratic, rule-of-law state at the foot of Mount Ararat, a state where rights are respected, where there are no political prisoners and where supreme power belongs to citizens, where everyone is equal before the law regardless of their merits.

The party also declared its intention to mobilize the civil initiatives that have displayed activity in Armenia and channel their activities into achieving a system transformation in the country’s life. This is also something new for political parties that have disengaged themselves from civil affairs.

Hovannisian said that they will be consistent in uncovering the crime of March 1, 2008 (the deadly post-election unrest resulting in clashes between opposition supporters and security forces), but added that it will not happen until “the second, third and then first presidents are questioned”. “All of us are responsible for the rigged elections, corruption, the clash of public and private interests, but the primary responsibility lies with the three presidents of Armenia,” said Hovannisian. At the same time, he argued that during their times as presidents Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan have amassed so much capital that it would be sufficient to complete the restoration of Karabakh along with its liberated territories.

In parliamentary elections, Hovannisian prefers participating as a bloc, but if such an alliance fails to be formed, then they are ready to participate in the election campaign independently.

Further developments within the opposition domain will show whether electoral blocs will be formed or not. And the opposition in Armenia today has two irreconcilable poles. The Armenian National Congress led by first president Levon Ter-Petrosyan has so far failed to sit down with ARF, which has declared itself to be opposition, and ARF cannot forgive Ter-Petrosyan the so-called Dro case, the reprisals against Dashnaktsutyun members, as a result of which by 1995 most of the current ARF leaders had been jailed.

Heritage has good relations with both forces, but so far all its attempts to convene a roundtable with the participation of all parties have been unsuccessful. Despite the commonality of the declared policy and goals, the parties prefer pursuing ‘non-bloc’ policies.