Andranik Tevanyan: Former President of Armenia supports Pashinyan to maintain his position, acknowledging his inability to reclaim power

ArmInfo.Andranik Tevanyan: Former President of Armenia supports Pashinyan to maintain his position, acknowledging his inability to reclaim power

Former President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan, acknowledging that he cannot regain power, is reportedly willing to assist Nikol Pashinyan in maintaining his position as Prime Minister. This claim was made in a video statement by Andranik Tevanyan, the leader of the Mother Armenia opposition faction in the Yerevan Council of Elders, in response to rumors suggesting that he had written a letter to the Prime Minister requesting a role in the government.  Tevanyan emphasized that the information is false and is intended to divert focus from the efforts to address both domestic and foreign policies pursued by Pashinyan. Moreover, it is necessary to prevent the Mother Armenia faction from  gaining influence. In his opinion, these are the issues that the  third president of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan, is trying to address by spreading disinformation.

In this regard, the faction leader expressed the opinion that the  third president of Armenia started accumulating resources during the first Karabakh war. "When Serzh Sargsyan became president, his propaganda machine became more organized, involving various structures and figures. Some of them positioned themselves as opposition, while others presented themselves as independent. Additionally, there were some media outlets funded by Sargsyan," Tevanyan explained.

According to him, these actions were intended to maintain power and financial resources. "Serzh Sargsyan achieved this by spreading disinformation and using various tools to solve his issues," the faction leader explained, adding that Pashinyan is simply carrying on this practice, keeping the system intact.  Andranik Tevanyan firmly believes that Serzh Sargsyan had been actively fighting against all opposition forces and attempting to destabilize Russian-Armenian relations by spreading anti-Russian propaganda since those times.  "This anti-Russian narrative is still being perpetuated today by  Pashinyan and members of the ruling Civil Contract party," Tevanyan noted.

The faction leader also dismissed Serzh Sargsyan's claim that he didn't hand over power, but rather former Armenian Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan did. According to him, since this information did not cause a reaction, it became a generally accepted opinion.  In his opinion, Serzh Sargsyan is simply trying to create the illusion of support for the opposition by contradicting Pashinyan's assertion that negotiations on the transfer of Artsakh had been ongoing since 1994. "As long as the third president realizes he cannot regain power in Armenia, he will do everything in his power to ensure Nikol Pashinyan remains in office. To achieve this, he must target any  forces that could potentially offer an alternative to Pashinyan,"  Tevanyan concluded.