ARMENIAN TYCOON CLAIMS ZERO PARTY SPENDING
By Ruzanna Stepanian
Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
March 30 2007
A political party led by Armenia’s reputedly wealthiest businessman
close to President Robert Kocharian claims to have made no expenditures
last year, despite opening hundreds of offices and handing out
politically motivated aid, it emerged on Friday.
Under Armenian law, all officially registered parties must issue annual
financial reports detailing their real incomes and expenditures. Few
of them are believed to comply with the requirement.
The Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) of Gagik Tsarukian posted zero
expenditures in its report submitted to the Armenian Ministry of
Justice recently. Founded just over a year ago, the BHK aggressively
expanded in the course of 2006 and now claims to have as many as
370,000 members, making it by far the largest party in the country.
The party also opened some 500 big and small offices across Armenia
that are now buzzing with activity in the run-up to the May 12
parliamentary elections which Tsarukian intends to win.
According to the chief BHK spokesman, Baghdasar Mherian, the party
has spent nothing on that because all of those offices are owned by
its members and "people close to the party." Speaking to RFE/RL,
Mherian also claimed that none of the thousands of people working
for the party, including himself, gets paid by Tsarukian. "All of
them are volunteers," he said.
The tycoon spent last year millions of dollars on providing
agricultural relief, free medical aid and other supposedly public
services to scores of impoverished Armenians. The heavily advertised
assistance, portrayed as "benevolence" by the BHK but condemned as vote
buying by critics, was technically distributed by an obscure charity
bearing Tsarukian’s name. However, promotional reports aired by several
Armenian TV stations last fall clearly attributed it to the party.