Civil Contract MP Aren Mkrtchyan responded to former President Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s comments criticizing a rally planned by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Vagharshapat.
In a Facebook post, Mkrtchyan wrote: “Levon, you’re no match for Nikol Pashinyan.”
He recalled the mass rally organized by Ter-Petrosyan’s supporters on March 1, 2008, claiming it was similarly large, but that the ex-president abandoned his followers amid gunfire and retreated home, where he remained under house arrest.
According to Mkrtchyan, the arrest could have been lifted by simply signing a document, but Ter-Petrosyan chose not to. Supporters justified this by citing his safety, while Mkrtchyan countered with the tragedy of ten frozen bodies left in Yerevan’s center.
He quoted Ter-Petrosyan's own words: “The worst kind of government is one that does not make decisions.” Then, referencing his 1998 resignation, Mkrtchyan questioned why Ter-Petrosyan stepped down, claiming his Peace and Reconciliation Party had lost.
“You could have chosen to push forward and leave peace, not war, to my generation,” Mkrtchyan said, suggesting that the lack of public support at the time was due to Ter-Petrosyan’s illegitimacy following alleged electoral fraud in 1996.
He praised Pashinyan as a leader who, unlike Ter-Petrosyan, led a successful movement in 2018 and did not flee or abandon the fight—even when resigning after defeat, he was re-elected without manipulating the vote.
Former President Ter-Petrosyan had urged the cancellation of the Etchmiadzin rally, claiming it stirs unrest and calling for the release of political prisoners, including Archbishop Bagrat, Archbishop Mikael, and Samvel Karapetyan.
