Levon Ter Petrosian Yerevan Rally Scheduled

With next year’s presidential election in Armenia drawing ever nearer, all focus remains on the republic’s first president, Levon Ter Petrosian. Although not considered likely to return to Armenian politics until recently, the nomination of the former head of state who was forced to resign in an internal coup staged by key ministers in 1998 looks more probable with each passing day.

Analysts, journalists, opposition activists and some part of civil society, however, expect that Ter Petrosian will make his decision known after holding a public rally in Yerevan’s Liberty Square on 26 October.

Former President Levon Ter-Petrosian will hold next week his first public rally in Yerevan in more than a decade to make a more detailed assessment of the situation in Armenia and gauge popular support for his return to active politics.

The rally, scheduled for October 26, will be a further indication that he is leaning towards participating in next year’s presidential election. It will come one day before the eighth anniversary of the 1999 armed attack on the Armenian parliament that left then Prime Minister Vazgen Sarkisian, parliament speaker Karen Demirchian and six other officials dead.

Ter-Petrosian allies said on Tuesday this is the reason why the rally will also feature two other opposition speakers: Sarkisian’s brother Aram and Demirchian’s son Karen Demirchian.

“We will discuss the political situation, propose solutions and outline the tasks that need to be accomplished soon,” Aram Sarkisian told RFE/RL.

Sarkisian said the gathering will be “very important” for Ter-Petrosian’s increasingly likely presidential bid, predicting that it will attract a huge crowd. “He who controls the street is the master of the country,” he said.

The unprecedented rally might well be the most anticipated public meeting to be held in the Armenian capital since perhaps even those that called for the unification of Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh in 1988 and which pre-empted war with Azerbaijan over the territory. More interestingly, if such a meeting had been suggested even as recently as the 12 May parliamentary election, few analysts and journalists would believe it. Even less would welcome it.

Now, however, the situation appears to have changed dramatically.

Ter-Petrosian is understood to be planning to elaborate on his September 21 speech in Yerevan that marked the end of his nearly decade-long silence. He denounced the current Armenia leadership as “corrupt and criminal” and accused it of turning Armenia into a “third world country” and dragging out the resolution of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. It is expected that during the planned rally Ter-Petrosian will touch upon controversial episodes of his eight-year rule and specify what he thinks needs to be done to meet challenges facing Armenia.

For sure, Ter Petrosian is everywhere these days. After meeting with old foes the Armenian Revolutionary Federation — Dashnaktsutyun (ARF-D) and Vazgen Manukian soon after his much publicized 21 September speech, meetings with other officials continue. Last week, Ter Petrosian reportedly met with the president of the unrecognized Republic of Nagorno Karabakh, and today with Orinats Yerkir party leader Artur Baghdasarian.

[…] Heghine Bisharian, the number two figure in Orinats Yerkir also present at the meeting, told RFE/RL that it focused on the upcoming presidential ballot and ways of ensuring its freedom and fairness.

Bisharian made it clear that Baghdasarian will contest the 2008 election and will not withdraw from the race in Ter-Petrosian’s favor. She also said the ex-president gave the impression that he will enter the presidential race. “I think he will run for president,” she said.

Last month, the very idea of Levon Ter Petrosian making a political comeback would have sounded absurd to most Armenians, but the past few weeks give grounds to believe that his nomination is likely. According to many analysts and opposition activists, Ter Petrosian is the only candidate that could challenge the prime minister, Serzh Sarkisian, in the presidential election which will determine the successor to the incumbent, Robert Kocharian.

RFE/RL’s Press Review summarizes in English some of the reactions from Armenia’s pro-opposition press:

“Although Levon Ter-Petrosian has not yet personally announced his participation in Armenia’s presidential elections, his preliminary meetings not only create real grounds for such participation but are forcing the first president … to bring together the viable fragments of the opposition,” writes “Taregir.” The pro-Ter-Petrosian paper stands by its view that all other opposition leaders lack the skills and experiences to successfully take on the ruling regime. Which is why, itt says, the latter has always found it easy to deal with them.

“Zhamanak Yerevan” says Ter-Petrosian’s October 26 rally in Yerevan could prove “decisive” for the success of his presidential ambitions. The paper says the number of people attending it will give him a better idea of his chances in the 2008 elections.

Ter Petrosian also visited RFE/RL’s Yerevan Bureau, and the photograph posted on the station’s website is sure to raise many eyebrows among government supporters. “It was a very nice and pleasant conversation with nice people. I’m sure this is not our last meeting,” the station reported Levon Ter Petrosian as saying, perhaps hinting that his mind is in fact already made up.

Meanwhile, every election observer and political analyst in Armenia will be waiting impatiently for next week’s meeting. It might even prove to be the most significant political event of the year in Armenia and one that will certainly determine the way the course of the presidential election in Armenia. Even so, Ter Petrosian’s decision to run will undoubtedly be determined by turnout at the meeting.

This blog will not be surprised if it is very large indeed.

Levon Ter Petrosian, HHSh Independence Day Reception, Marriott Armenia, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2007