 Armenia's first president Levon Ter-Petrosyan has repeatedly "accused Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan and their' criminal-oligarchic'system of being the real perpetrators of the parliament shooting." In the run up to the 2008 presidential election he explicitly stated that "If you vote for Serzh Sargsyan on February 19, you will vote for Nairi Hunanyan. He who elects Serzh Sarkisian would desecrate the holy graves of Karen Demirchian and Vazgen Sarkisian." In 2009 the Armenian National Congress, an opposition alliance led by Ter-Petrosyan, released a statement on the 10th anniversary of the shooting blaming "Kocharyan and Serzh Sarkisyan for the killings, claiming that most Armenians consider them the masterminds of the crime." The statement continued, "October 27 was a violent seizure of power perpetrated by means of terrorism. Terrorism thus became the regime's main tool for clinging to power and reproducing itself."
