Pashinyan rebukes Strong Armenia party’s “criminal-oligarchic” behavior after

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said on Tuesday that material released by law enforcement shows what he described as a “criminal-oligarchic” approach and a disregard for citizens by the Strong Armenia alliance, after the Anti-Corruption Committee published wiretapped conversations allegedly linked to vote-buying and other election violations.

Speaking to citizens at a campaign event for the ruling Civil Contract party in Tashir, Pashinyan said that the recordings released by the law enforcement agency as part of an ongoing criminal investigation showed the Strong Armenia alliance’s real attitude toward citizens, as well as toward displaced persons from Karabakh.

“Today the Anti-Corruption Committee has published another recording, which relates to the ‘Strong Armenia’ alliance. There is nothing new in the fact that money is being distributed, but there are two very important aspects I want to draw your attention to. The first is that in that party’s headquarters they discuss both giving and receiving money, and they compare and draw parallels between this and immoral acts. They compare the process of giving money to a citizen with entering into a relationship with a prostitute,” said Pashinyan.

According to him, this rhetoric shows the Strong Armenia alliance’s real attitude toward people.

“This is the real picture. And what is most notable is that those people supposedly protect our brothers and sisters displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh from us. Look at what they say in their offices and how they speak about our people from Karabakh, using the most vulgar and outrageous sexually explicit language.

This is the most typical feature of criminal oligarchy — treating people as goods, treating people as commodities subject to buying and selling,” Pashinyan said.

Armenia’s Anti-Corruption Committee announced on Tuesday that it had opened a criminal investigation into alleged vote-buying and other election-related violations involving a candidate running for parliament on the Strong Armenia alliance ticket.

In a press release, the Anti-Corruption Committee said several individuals were detained after authorities uncovered a scheme in which voters in Lori Province were reportedly offered financial incentives, including rent payments, to influence their votes ahead of the elections. The scheme was allegedly organized by a member of the Strong Armenia alliance.

The law enforcement agency said the suspects, in order to avoid detection and reduce the traceability of their actions, allegedly used intermediaries and vehicles belonging to them, mainly distributed funds in cash, involved employees of affiliated companies and individuals from their circle in the receipt and distribution process, and, to make monitoring of financial flows more difficult, planned to use Russian bank cards for financial transactions.

The Anti-Corruption Committee also released audio recordings reportedly obtained through surveillance, showing conversations between suspects discussing the scheme.

In the explicit recording, two men are heard discussing the alleged scheme, with one saying, “That’s life, you pay them and [expletive] them.” Another man is heard insulting Karabakh Armenians.