Raffi Hovannisian, Opposition Rally, Matenadaran, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2003

Ask people who they will vote for in next year’s presidential election, or even whether they will vote at all, and you’ll get many different answers. Some say they will vote for Serzh Sarkisian because they want continuity while others say they will vote for Levon Ter Petrosian. However, there are also those who say that while they disike Kocharian and Sarkisian they will reluctantly vote for the latter to prevent Ter Petrosian from returning to power. In a sense, the former president’s public meetings in Liberty Square are an attempt to overturn the negative image that lingers from the days when corruption sky-rocketed, elections were falsified, and Armenians were left to endure winters without power.

And as seen by recent high profile meetings with some of those political parties and individuals who were once in opposition to him, Ter Petrosian badly needs the support of prominent opposition figures as well as that from former supporters now in positions of political and economic power. With Ter Petrosian seen as the first choice for president by only 5-6 percent of voters, in order to get into what looks likely to be a second round of the election, he needs more than just the support of minor radical opposition figures such as Nikol Pashinian, Aram Sarkisian, and the not-so-radical Stepan Demirchian. Probably, as mentioned by the Armenian Libertarian-Socialist Movement, he needs the support of popular figures such as Raffi Hovannisian.

For Levon Ter-Petrosyan winning Raffi Hovhanissian over is crucial: it’s a matter of securing a victory, or running the danger of not even getting into the second round. If Levon does not win over Raffi, the negative effects would be double if not triple: he will not only loose the Herritage Party’s electorate votes, but also loose it to another contender (HHD or Manukyan)… and that kind of formation could have a spiralling negative effect of disintegrating confidence in Levon camp. Ultimately, Raffi’s choice might be the deciding factor in determining who will be Serj Sarkisyan’s challenger in the second round.

The full post is available on the Armenia Election Monitor 2008.