YEREVAN. – Armenia is literally occupied, Karabakh war veteran, Armenia’s opposition Sardarapat movement coordinator Jirair Sefilian noted during a press conference on Friday.  

In his words, waging a battle within the system is naïveté, to put it mildly.    

“The fighting political class must acknowledge that its opponent is not 26 Baghramyan [Avenue, where the Presidential Residence is located]. It has become a puppet a long time ago in the hands of a variety of superpowers. With the absence of such awareness, it will not be possible to change power. Acknowledging all this, we were calling upon the opposition forces to come out from this field of the colonial system,” Sefilian said.

In the opposition activist’s words, they we unable to convince opposition Heritage Party Chairman, former FM Raffi Hovannisian—who was declared runner-up to the winner, incumbent President Serzh Sargsyan, as a result of the presidential election that was conducted on February 18, but who claims to be the real winner in the vote—to adopt a clear action plan to head together with groups that lead the protest.

“Under the conditions of the unprecedented wave of public discontent, it was possible to implement all these changes, but, sadly, we were unable to convince Raffi Hovannisian, and [therefore] we need to begin the fight with our methods,” Sefilian said, and added that the time of leaders has passed, and the time of leading groups has come.