YEREVAN -- The main opposition Armenian National Congress (HAK) has reaffirmed its stated intention to use upcoming parliamentary elections to try to and bring down President Serzh Sarkisian.
Levon Zurabian, the HAK's deputy head, said on January 30 that the alliance regards the parliamentary race as a “platform for generating popular resentment and civic protests against the regime...and expressing no confidence in Serzh Sarkisian.”
The HAK’s leader, former President Levon Ter-Petrossian, said in October that the bloc will seek to gain a “weighty presence” in the next parliament in order to impeach Sarkisian “single-handedly or in an alliance with other forces.”
Zurabian confirmed that the 18 opposition parties and other organizations aligned in the HAK officially decided on January 27 to jointly contest the parliamentary elections scheduled for May.
“We have no illusions, we don’t think [choosing a joint list of candidates] will be an easy task,” Zurabian said. “Today the authorities have serious expectations that the HAK will fail to reach an agreement on that issue... But that’s OK, we will again disappoint them.”
Some media reports say there are already disagreements among HAK party leaders over the ranking of names on their common electoral slate.