NA Speaker- Either Strong Armenia party or Gagik Tsarukyan`s bloc to  be  main opposition force in  new parliament

ArmInfo. Robert Kocharyan cannot manage his own faction in the RA National Assembly, so how  could he possible govern Armenia?  The RA NA Speaker,Alen Simonyan,  told reporters on March 3, when commenting on second RA President Robert Kocharyan's claim that he personally could lead the country  out of its current situation.

Meanwhile, as Alen Simonyan pointed out that power within the faction  has effectively shifted to the ARF (Dashnaktsutyun), leaving other  members acting merely as satellites. The speaker noted that many have  simply forgotten the " accomplishments"  of the second president of  the Republic of Armenia  during his presidency. "Today, he should be  thinking more about whether he can meet the electoral threshold in  the next parliament by joining forces with the ARF, or whether he  will focus all his opposition resources on getting other opposition  forces into the National Assembly. According to my information, the  21% of  votes received by Robert Kocharyan's political forces in 2021  will no longer be significant; those votes will go to other  opposition forces. He is well aware of this, and that is  why he has  called a press conference, offering his candidacy as an alternative  to the current government. Let him first resolve the issue of  entering the National Assembly, and then think about power," the NA  speaker said.

He predicted that three opposition forces will be able to cross the  threshold in the upcoming elections, two of which will either barely  make it into parliament or fail to achieve the required threshold at  all. The speaker expressed confidence that one of these major  opposition forces could be either the "Strong Armenia" party or the  electoral bloc formed by "Prosperous Armenia" party leader Gagik  Tsarukyan.  Robert Kocharyan and the "Armenia" bloc will also compete  for parliamentary seats, but their chances of winning are very slim.

Simonyan does not consider the current meetings between government  representatives and citizens to be election campaigning. "Hasn't the  prime minister visited villages and cities, met with people, eaten  pies before?" the speaker asked.