Armenia's president to take part in next election with new team, predicts analyst

Armenia's president will organize a new team prior to the 2013 presidential elections, and the parliament will see changes after the 2012 elections too, political analyst Suren Surenyants has said.

According to him the recent reshufflings in the government are supportive of the fact that Serzh Sargsyan will take part in the next presidential elections with a new team.

Speaking about the 2012 parliamentary elections Surenyants said that the fight between the authorities and the opposition will continue and it is likely that the main forces in parliament will be the Republican Party of Armenia (RAP), the Prosperous Armenia (PA) party and the opposing alliance Armenian National Congress (ANC).

According to him, the Rule of Law Party (RLP) may not win seats in parliament.

The Prosperous Armenia party will not quit the coalition and will continue to maintain "partnership relations" with the ruling RPA.
Speaking about presidential elections, he said that the ANC - considered the main opposition forces - will nominate Levon Ter-Petrosyan as its presidential candidate, but only in case of extraordinary elections.

"Levon Ter-Petrosyan's nomination in the next presidential elections is unlikely for two reasons: Firstly, it will be hard to gather the masses that were active during the previous presidential election, and, secondly, during the 2013 presidential election ANC's actions will be greatly dependent also on the way the parliamentary elections will be conducted and the results they will have," said Surenyants.

But given the current developments in Armenia's domestic political life, according to Surenyants, there will be no extraordinary elections.

That will be possible in case of a force-majeure situation, particularly, in case of significant developments around the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.