Tuesday, April 4, 2023
Radical Oppositionist Insulted, Threatened By Pro-Government Lawmakers
• Gayane Saribekian
Armenia - Edgar Ghazarian (right) and pro-government deputy Artur Hovannisian
attend a paliament committee meeting, April 4, 2023.
Pro-government lawmakers shouted verbal abuse and threats at an opposition
candidate for the vacant post of Armenia’s human rights defender as he harshly
criticized Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s government on Tuesday.
The two opposition groups represented in the Armenian parliament reluctantly
nominated Edgar Ghazarian, a maverick activist, late last month despite lacking
votes to install him as the country’s next ombudsman.
Ghazarian as well as the ruling Civil Contract party’s candidate, Deputy
Prosecutor-General Anahit Manasian, appeared before the parliament committee on
human rights ahead of the ombudsman’s election expected next week. Opposition
parliamentarians were conspicuously absent from the meeting, underscoring their
apparent reservations about their candidate and Manasian’s almost certain
election.
The meeting descended into chaos after Ghazarian lashed out at the government in
his opening remarks. He urged Armenians to oust a “criminal regime whose tenure
has been marred by widespread human rights abuses.”
Artur Hovannisian, the number two figure in Civil Contract’s parliamentary
group, interrupted the speech to protest against that characterization.
Ghazarian further infuriated Hovannisian and other pro-government deputies when
he described the 2018 “velvet revolution,” which brought Pashinian to power, as
the root cause of Armenia’s current problems.
“The obvious decline of all democratic institutions and human rights in our
country is the result of the Turkish-Azerbaijani revolution that happened in
Armenia in 2018,” declared the radical oppositionist.
“We will cut the tongues and ears of anyone who will dare to call our people an
Azerbaijani-Turkish group,” shouted Hovannisian.
“By describing the events of 2018 as a Turkish-Azerbaijani revolution I don’t
mean the behavior of the Armenian people. I mean the beneficiaries of those
events,” clarified Ghazarian.
The Civil Contract deputies attending the meeting doubled down on insults,
taunts and ridicule directed at him. One of them, Narek Ghahramanian, noted
mockingly that Ghazarian was beaten up by unknown assailants outside his home
last October.
“Nobody is going to beat you up here,” Hovannisian told the opposition
candidate. “But don’t provoke us. Come on, get out of here!”
Ghazarian served as a provincial governor and Armenia’s ambassador to Poland
during former President Serzh Sarkisian’s rule. He became the chief of the
Armenian Constitutional Court staff after Sarkisian was toppled in the 2018
“velvet revolution.” He lost that post in 2020.
Ghazarian, who is currently not affiliated with any party, set up a fringe
opposition group last summer to campaign for Pashinian’s resignation and
prosecution on treason charges. It rallied several hundred supporters in Yerevan
in August.
Ter-Petrosian Demands ‘Notorious’ Parliament Speaker’s Ouster
• Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia - Former President Levon Ter-Petrosian speaks at a press conference in
Yerevan, June 10, 2021.
Former President Levon Ter-Petrosian on Tuesday condemned parliament speaker
Alen Simonian in unusually strong terms for allegedly spitting at an opposition
heckler and said he must be ousted.
A Canadian-Armenian member of the opposition Dashnaktsutyun party claimed that
Simonian ordered his bodyguards to overpower him and then spat in his face after
he branded the latter a “traitor” on a street in downtown Yerevan on Sunday.
Simonian did not deny spitting at the activist, Garen Megerdichian. He said he
was gravely insulted and responded accordingly.
Leaders of Armenia’s main opposition groups condemned Simonian’s actions as a
“hooligan” act that warrants criminal proceedings.
Ter-Petrosian added his voice to the condemnation in an article posted on
ilur.am. He blasted “the notorious Alen Simonian’s unforgivable deed” as a
“national disgrace.”
“As for the word traitor, it is not a domestic curse or a personal insult but a
purely political assessment which should be countered by a correct and
reasonable response, rather than vulgar speech or saliva … There has never been
a leader of a more or less democratic state in the world who was not branded a
traitor by his political opponents,” he wrote.
“I am not exaggerating at all: his action is the biggest damage done to the
reputation of our statehood which can be eliminated only by his removal from
office,” Ter-Petrosian went on. “This is the only way to restore the honor of
our people in the eyes of the international community.”
He said Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s party, which controls the National
Assembly, should initiate Simonian’s ouster “in order not to finally ruin its
standing with the people.”
Armenia - Parliament speaker Alen Simonian (right) meets Slovak lawmaker Marian
Kery, Yerevan, April 4, 2023.
Lawmakers representing the party on Monday defended the speaker and blamed the
opposition activist for Sunday’s incident.
Simonian, who is a senior member of the party and close Pashinian associate, was
quick to hit back at the 78-year-old ex-president who had ruled Armenia from
1991-1998. “I’m not a traitor, I never was and never will be,” he wrote on
Facebook.
“The historian president should know well what the unforgivable mistakes are and
the price paid by country leaders who committed unforgivable mistakes in
history,” he said.
Simonian, 43, is no stranger to controversy. In particular, he angered the
families of Armenian soldiers taken prisoner during the 2020 war with Azerbaijan
with disparaging comments made about them in late 2021.
Last year, Simonian defended his mother after she was caught on camera spitting
at opposition protesters and showing the middle finger to them from the balcony
of her Yerevan apartment.
Pashinian’s Son Denies Assault Claims
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and his son Ashot, May 26, 2018.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s son Ashot flatly denied on Tuesday claims by
his father’s political allies that he was physically attacked in Yerevan at the
weekend.
“There was no political or other attack against me,” he said in a statement.
“Unfortunately, I have to personally refute the false information circulating
about me.”
“As for the spread of the ‘information,’ I think the most surprising thing is
who is quoting whom. I don’t even care why,” Ashot Pashinian added in what
looked like a jibe at government loyalists who alleged the assault.
Parliament speaker Alen Simonian was the first to do that on Monday. Simonian
said the “attack on the Armenian prime minister’s son” was part of “a series of
provocations” organized by Armenian opposition groups.
One of those “provocations,” he said, was Sunday’s incident in downtown Yerevan
during which Simonian allegedly spat at an opposition activist who branded him a
traitor.
The embattled speaker refused to comment on Ashot Pashinian’s strong denial of
his claim which was echoed by another senior pro-government lawmaker.
Unlike his mother and two of his sisters, the 22-year-old Pashinian Jr. has kept
a low profile and not made political statements in recent years. Nor has he been
seen accompanying his father on official or working trips abroad.
Yerevan To Have No Mayor Until End Of 2023
• Narine Ghalechian
Armenia - Former Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinian attends a session of
Yerevan's municipal assembly, September 23, 2022.
The post of Yerevan’s mayor will remain formally vacant until the next municipal
elections slated for this fall, Armenia’s ruling Civil Contract party announced
on Tuesday.
The tactical decision is clearly designed to boost the party’s and its mayoral
candidate Tigran Avinian’s chances in the elections.
Yerevan’s last mayor, Hrachya Sargsian, stepped down on March 17 after only 15
months in office. The Armenian capital has since been effectively run by
Avinian, one of its deputy mayors.
Under Armenian law, the city council controlled by Civil Contract has to meet by
April 11 to elect a new mayor. The council majority leader, Armen Galjian, said
that he and the other pro-government members of the municipal assembly will
boycott the vote and thus make it null and void.
“Our faction has decided not to elect a new mayor given that only a few months
remain before the next elections,” said Galjian.
Isabella Abgarian, an independent member of the council, deplored the boycott.
She said Armenia’s political leadership opted it for it simply because Avinian
is not a council member and therefore not eligible for the post of mayor now.
“They can’t nominate someone else because that person could develop ambitions
after becoming mayor, which would interfere with their plans,” Abgarian told
RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Avinian will thus remain Yerevan’s de facto mayor and exploit his power of
incumbency during the mayoral race, she said.
None of Armenia’s major opposition groups have fielded mayoral candidates so far.
The last municipal elections were held in September 2018. Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian’s won the overwhelming majority of seats in the city council and
installed TV comedian Hayk Marutian as mayor. The council ousted Marutian in
December 2021 after he fell out with Pashinian.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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