Political expert: After presidential election Armenian opposition will leave the streets

• Friday, February 8, 18:16

The Armenian opposition will finally leave the streets after the forthcoming presidential election on Feb 18, Head of the Caucasus Institute, political expert Alexander Iskandaryan said at today's press conference.   

The expert said that the experience of the Armenian National Congress demonstrated that the Armenian opposition is gradually becoming parliamentary and will stop using rallies as a tool. "For instance, in Parliament Nikol Pashinyan plays a role of an opposition MP and in the square he rampages and plays the role of a blatant radical", he said.   

As regards the first President of Armenia Levon Ter-Petrosyan's statement that the Armenian National Congress will be reformed into a party, Iskandaryan pointed out that the ANC is a pyramidal system of governance, and as a rule, it is Ter-Petrosyan that makes the decisions. "Ter-Petrosyan cannot leave the politics, it may happen only in case of his physical non-existence", he stressed.     

Earlier, in his interview ith Chorrord Inqnishkhanutyun newspaper, the first President of Armenia, Leader of Armenian National Congress (ANC) Levon Ter-Petrosyan that inside ANC there are certain difficulties as many political forces and figures have left the Congress. He realizes that ANC can no longer exist in the same format. "Nevertheless, ANC has fully played its role in the fight against thugocracy, but for further effective fight it needs serious institutional changes. Neither nation-wide movement nor the Congress have ever been dogmatic structures and they have always managed to get adjusted to the requirements of time in the institutional aspect," Ter-Petrosyan said. The Congress brilliantly settled the given task in 2008, he said, and it will surely cope with that now. "Considering the current trends of political development, I think it is time for the Congress to transform into a single party from the alliance of various parties and non-party politicians. I'd like to say that the forces loyal to the Congress are currently studying this issue," the first president said.  He noted that the new party will be committed to the ideas of social-liberalism i.e.  harmonization of the liberal economic system and full satisfaction of the population's
social needs within moderate control by the government. "As regards the political program of the new party, it will not differ from ANC's course: liquidation of thugocracy and restoration of the Constitutional order," said ANC leader.