Writing for the Jamestown Foundation’s Eurasia Daily Monitor, RFE/RL’s Emil Danielyan once again analyzes the arrival of perhaps Armenia’s most wealthy oligarch on the political scene. This month, pro-Kocharian MP and businessman Gagik Tsarukian (AKA Dodi Gago) surprised many when local media reports suggested that opposition MP Victor Dalakian might be chosen to lead his new “Prosperous Armenia” political party.

A former arm-wrestler who has built a business empire over the past decade, Tsarukian is the most vivid representative of Armenia’s tiny class of millionaires close to the Kocharian administration. The so-called “oligarchs” like flaunting their wealth and are not known for their respect of law. Some of them enjoy exclusive rights to highly lucrative forms of economic activity such as large-scale imports of fuel, food, and other basic commodities. In recent years the oligarchs have grown even more intertwined with the ruling regime, helping it rig elections and suppress the opposition. Their roguish “bodyguards,” for example, were reportedly involved in a spate of violent attacks on opposition politicians, journalists, and human rights activists in the spring of 2004.

Tsarukian and many other oligarchs hold seats in the Armenian parliament, having been “elected” through vote bribes and intimidation. Parliamentary mandates are little more than a badge of prestige for them. But with his decision to create his own party, Prosperous Armenia, Tsarukian revealed his intention to go farther and play a serious role in Armenian politics. “I see some unsolved problems in both the socioeconomic and political fields. I believe that our party, which will be a party of strong and clean people, will be able to make its contribution to solving those problems,” Tsarukian told the Haykakan Zhamanak daily in an interview published on December 21.

Of course, Tsarukian has surprised many before.

Not only is he considered the financial muscle behind Tigran Karapetyan’s ALM TV station, he is also believed to be sponsoring publication of the pro-opposition Aravot newspaper. Regardless, alarm bells must be ringing in both government and opposition circles now that his party has declared its intention to contest the 2007 parliamentary elections and field a candidate in the 2008 presidential elections.

Danielyan suggests that the candidate might be the current Defense Minister Serzh Sarkisyan.

Sarkisian is widely thought to be harboring presidential ambitions. He has repeatedly stated in recent months that his participation in the next presidential election depends on the outcome of the legislative polls that will precede it. He last ran for parliament on the ticket of Prime Minister Andranik Markarian’s Republican Party of Armenia (HHK). Sarkisian has promised to clarify early this year whether he will again team up with the HHK in 2007. He now has an attractive alternative in Prosperous Armenia that will combine Tsarukian’s massive financial resources with the populist appeal of its candidates. “In essence, the Prosperous Armenia party poses a threat to both the [ruling] coalition and opposition alliances,” commented Azg.

The HHK and two other pro-Kocharian groups represented in the Armenian government, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) and the Orinats Yerkir party, are allegedly worried about the emergence of an “oligarchic” party. In public, their leaders have played down its implications. “We are not scared, concerned, happy or saddened, no matter how rich or poor that party is,” said an ARF spokesman. But Tigran Torosian, an HHK leader and the deputy speaker of the Armenian parliament, did expose coalition jitters on January 12 when he warned that money must not become the “decisive factor” in Armenian elections.

Given that Torosian’s Republican Party has largely benefitted from the financial muscle of the oligarchs and other well-connected businessmen in the past, I guess what he really means to say is that he doesn’t like money being a “decisive factor” when it poses a threat to his own political aspirations.

Regardless, the run-up to the 2007 parliamentary elections will soon be in full-swing and what remains to be seen is whether divisions in the coalition government will deepen.

Now that really would be interesting.