There was talk, but I did not ask the RPA [i.e. the former ruling Republican Party of Armenia] to run in the 2021 elections. The second president of Armenia, Robert Kocharyan, said this in an interview with several media outlets—and referring to opposition MP Hayk Mamijanyan's statement that Kocharyan had asked third President Serzh Sargsyan to run in the parliamentary elections in 2021 because it would help him.

"There was no such thing. On the contrary, that running [in the election] would have bothered me because the picture was such that we got the embodiment of the old and the new during those elections. I can tell you what happened. It was in the last part of the ‘Salvation of the Fatherland’ movement when it was already clear that there shall be elections, and we were discussing the issue of elections with five or six people. Mamijanyan was definitely not in that circle.

Yes, the third president was categorically against the elections. I was for [them]. I was saying the opposition cannot say, ‘I don’t want elections.’ Otherwise, it is not understandable because there is a logic of political struggle in it. His justification was as follows: ‘[PM] Nikol Pashinyan will win [the elections], we will legitimize the elections.’ My approach was as follows: ‘It is not by my or their running that you legitimize [the elections]. We should not have that arrogance, it seems to us that if we do not run, then the elections are legitimate?’ To this day, I simply do not understand such type of an explanation.

At that time, he [i.e. Sargsyan] said that they will not run, the Republican Party will not run [in the election]. All the other participants said that they will run. Such a conversation actually took place, and I do not want to give the names of the participants; I believe everyone can guess who they were.

After that, when we parted ways, the third president said, ‘We will not run,’ the others all said, ‘We will run.’ About a week ago, I learned from the press that the Republican Party had decided to run. I called the third president, I said, ‘As you said, ‘We are not running,’ have you decided to run now?’ He said, ‘Well, you know, our young people gathered, they convinced me that it was not right to run, but since there is an election, it is right to run. If it is a request...’ On the contrary, I called [Sargsyan], I said, ‘It seems you said one thing, it becomes something else.’

It would have be surprising for me if they had not run in the elections. My formula was the following: Yes, no one can win alone, yes, Pashinyan still has a significant advantage, but if we get involved in this matter, it is possible that we will achieve some result with three points, four points in total. That conversation took place, but there was absolutely no request for me to ask someone," Kocharyan said.