"Zhoghovurd": Who united around the "Strong Armenia with Samvel Karapetyan" alliance?

The Zhoghovurd daily writes: “At the center of political developments in 2026 is the “Strong Armenia with Samvel Karapetyan” alliance initiated by businessman Samvel Karapetyan. In recent days, a number of political forces and figures have come forward with their support or willingness to cooperate.

First, Narek Karapetyan, a member of the board of the “Strong Armenia” party, signed a memorandum on the creation of the alliance with Harutyun Harutyunyan, the chairman of the “New Era” party, and Nairi Sargsyan, the honorary chairman and plenipotentiary representative of the “United Armenians” party.

The political parties that signed the memorandum announced that they are uniting around the political agenda and pre-election program of the “Strong Armenia” party and will act on the principles of strengthening statehood, protecting national and spiritual values, effective and accountable governance, sustainable economic development, ensuring legal and social justice and solidarity.

It is noted that the ideological basis of the emerging alliance is consistent with the national-state and value approaches put forward by Samvel Karapetyan, and the parties express their willingness to unite around this ideological basis.

Then the Heritage Party announced that it would not participate in the elections and called on its supporters to support the alliance led by Samvel Karapetyan.

The Freedom Party, the party led by former Prime Minister Hrant Bagratyan, announced that it supports Karapetyan.

Democratic National Union of Armenia (DNUA)

The Democratic National Union of Armenia officially announced that it supports the alliance led by Karapetyan, emphasizing the need for broad consolidation.

Political parties will participate in the upcoming elections with a unified political alliance, “Strong Armenia with Samvel Karapetyan.”

At this point, the following picture can be distinguished:

• An opposition coalition is forming around Samvel Karapetyan

• Both figures from the former system and extra-parliamentary forces have expressed support

• A number of parties are even refusing to participate in the elections in favor of his alliance

• At the same time, there is no cooperation with some major political forces.

Let us add that yesterday it also became known that the first 30 candidates of the pre-election list were approved at the congress of the “Strong Armenia” party. Thus, according to the media, the first seven look like this:

Narek Karapetyan

Aram Vardevanyan

Gohar Meloyan

David Ghazinyan

Ruben Mkhitaryan

Arega Hovsepyan

Mamikon Aslanyan.