Levon Ter-Petrosyan: Serzh Sargsyan rejected my proposal to form a political bloc and run in the upcoming elections
Armenia's third president Serzh Sargsyan has turned down the proposal made by first president Levon Ter-Petrosyan to form a political bloc between the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) and the Armenian National Congress (ANC) to run in the upcoming parliamentary elections slated for June.
According to the statement by Ter-Petrosyan published on Ilur.am portal, the proposal had been made by Ter-Petrosyan on May 1 during the meeting of the two presidents. Ter-Petrosyan had also suggested a draft statement authored by him that gave justification for forming such a political alliance called ‘National Accord Alliance’.
The text read in part that the president would participate in the elections with a joint bloc 'despite previous fundamental disagreements, sharp contradictions, realizing the responsibility for the country’s future, and without personally aspiring to hold any position in the new system of government. It added that need for consolidation came considering 'the total failure by the authorities in all spheres of state administration' and 'explicit destructive consequences of their reproduction' among other things.
This is the second statement by Ter-Petrosyan made in the past two day. On Thursday, the first president revealed that he had proposed the idea of forming a political bloc to all former presidents of Armenia, including second president Robert Kocharyan during an earlier meeting held in late March.
Then, per Ter-Petrosyan, second President Robert Kocharyan had turned down the proposal, referring to his commitments to take part in the elections in a different format.