Armenian opposition leaders Kocharyan and Sargsyan split over Pashinyan impeachment

• 4 min read

▲Former President Serzh Sargsyan (left) and Robert Kocharyan (right). Official photo.

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The opposition Armenia Alliance faction of former president Robert Kocharyan has seemingly accused the newly formed We Are Awake movement of attempting to ‘blackmail’ their MPs as part of a campaign to impeach Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

In a statement on 2 May, the Armenia Alliance appeared to say the movement was using ‘the language of blackmail’, adding that ‘such actions cannot go unanswered’, and expressing doubts about whether the initiative is actually capable of mobilising street protests in parallel to Pashinyan’s potential impeachment process.

The statement came as a rift between former political allies, Robert Kocharyan, who was president from 1998–2008, and Serzh Sargsyan, who succeeded him, continues to grow.

Reiterating their support of ‘any option’ to remove Pashinyan from power, the Armenia Alliance noted that without strong public pressure in the streets, it would be impossible to secure a successful impeachment.

‘Moreover, even such pressure does not ultimately guarantee the provision of the necessary votes’, the statement read.

Meanwhile, the alliance reaffirmed their readiness to provide the signatures of all 28 MPs in their faction to initiate the impeachment process, if those launching the initiative could secure the remaining eight signatures and ‘publicly declare their ability and responsibility to ensure the popular support necessary for the success of the impeachment’.

The opposition, which currently holds 34 seats in parliament, is two MPs short of the number required to submit a motion of no confidence in Pashinyan’s government. Moreover, at least 54 MPs must vote in favour of the motion for it to be adopted.

On Tuesday, the other opposition faction, I Have Honour, published their response to the initiative, stating that in order to avoid complicating the process ‘with unnecessary political ambitions’, their faction declared it did not have a candidate for prime minister ‘at this moment’.

The faction also reiterated their ‘readiness to discuss the issue of a candidate without any preconditions and initiate a process of expressing no confidence in the Prime Minister’.

In turn, Hayk Mamijanyan, the head of the I Have Honour faction and a member of former President Serzh Sargsyan’s Republican party, accused Kocharyan’s supporters of running ‘dirty campaigns’ against the Republican party and their leader for the past seven years.

Mamijanyan also said that they would support Kocharyan if he were nominated as the candidate for prime minister.

At the end of April, members of the We Are Awake movement submitted letters to all 107 MPs in parliament, urging them to launch impeachment proceedings against Pashinyan while vowing to launch street protests to secure his removal.

While no opposition MP has launched such an initiative, the letters have caused a further deepening of the rift between the two main opposition factions, and between supporters of Kocharyan and Sargsyan.

The conflict between the ex-presidents intensified in March, following a series of accusations coming mainly from Kocharyan’s circles that the Republican Party was responsible for bringing Pashinyan to power. In April, Sargsyan suggested that those who deliberately circulate those accusations do so ‘in order to clean up their not-so-distant past’.

While the opposition appears far from reaching an agreement, two expelled MPs from the ruling Civil Contract party, Hovik Aghazaryan and Hakob Aslanyan, could also take the initiative to launch a motion of no confidence in Pashinyan.

In a talk with RFE/RL, Aghazaryan did not exclude such a move, saying that the issue would be discussed on Friday during a board meeting of their newly formed United National Socialist Party.

Aghazaryan ruled out nominating any member of Civil Contract for prime minister, and also joining any impeachment process if it would be launched by either opposition faction.

Arshaluys Barseghyan •

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A journalist since 2016, Arshaluys specialises in fact-checking and open-source investigations, with a focus on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, politics, and social and gender issues. She is also a strong advocate for media literacy and closely follows Armenia’s media landscape.