Hopes for Opposition Unity Dashed?

Eurasianet reports that hopes for opposition unity have now been dashed by the failure of either Levon Ter-Petrossian or Artur Baghdasarian to bow out of the presidential election race in support of the other.

As mentioned on this blog at the beginning of December, Ter-Petrossian must be hoping that the opposition Heritage party will support him in time for next week’s presidential election.

That should be known later today.

A merger announcement had been expected by February 9, the last day for candidates to withdraw from Armenia’s presidential race. But the day came and went without an announcement by either Ter-Petrosian or Baghdasarian. […]

[…]

Heritage Party spokesperson Hovsep Khurshudian told EurasiaNet that negotiations with Ter-Petrosian and Baghdasarian are still ongoing. Hopes for some form of cooperation still exist, he said.

Senior Heritage Party member Stepan Safarian echoed that view, asserting that “everything” will be clear by February 12. “We will have a big discussion inside the party tonight and we will probably make a decision on that during that discussion and will clarify our position,” Safarian said in reference to a potential partnership with Ter-Petrosian and/or Baghdasarian.

Political analysts, however, take a dimmer view. With the February 9 deadline past, one observer says, the time for unified campaigns is gone. Rather, he asserts, Heritage will now have to decide which campaign it plans to support – Ter-Petrosian or Baghdasarian.

“From the legal point of view, the time for unifications is up, and even if one of the candidates speaks out about withdrawing his candidacy in favor of another candidate, it will no longer have the impact that it would have had before February 9,” commented pro-opposition political analyst Aghasi Yenokian.

Yenokian attributes the failure to agree on a unified campaign to the ambitions of both candidates and government pressure.