“Samvel Karapetian is capable of uniting around himself a strong government composed of professional economists and technocrats whose primary task will be to strengthen the country and improve the plight of the population,” Ter-Petrosian said in comments posted on Facebook.
“It can be stated for certain that in the event of his victory, he will not walk away from agreements signed between Armenia and other states but instead will further strengthen Armenia's obligations to them,” he said.
The election victory of Karapetian’s opposition movement would also put an end to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s “unconstitutional” campaign against the Armenian Apostolic Church, added Ter-Petrosian.
The 81-year-old ex-president, who had led Armenia to independence in 1991, already signaled support for Karapetian late last week, saying that only the Russian-Armenian tycoon can unite the “fragmented opposition” in the run-up to the elections.
“One must finally understand that the unification of the opposition is not a political issue but simply a matter of saving the nation,” he declared.
Although Karapetian’s recently established Strong Armenia party responded cautiously to that statement, Ter-Petrosian said that the reaction was “more than I expected.” He said nothing about the possibility of its pre-election cooperation with his Armenian National Congress (HAK). Levon Zurabian, Ter-Petrosian’s right-hand man and the HAK’s deputy chairman, signaled its readiness to join forces with Karapetian’s movement in late December.
Strong Armenia is an offshoot of the Mer Dzevov (In Our Way) movement which Karapetian launched in late August two months after being arrested and prosecuted following his strong criticism of Pashinian’s efforts to depose the supreme head of the church, Catholicos Garegin II. The movement claims to have attracted 30,000 members since then. The new party spawned by it is expected to be one of Pashinian’s main election challengers.
Under the Armenian constitution, Karapetian cannot become prime minister because of his dual Russian citizenship. His party made clear last month that it will try to remove this constitutional hurdle if it wins the elections.