Two days after vowing to “take out” his three main election challengers, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian announced on Wednesday the impending nationalization of Armenia’s largest cement plant belonging to one of them, Gagik Tsarukian.
Campaigning in the northern Lori province, Pashinian said prosecutors have recommended its “very quick” seizure after detecting “machinations” by its owner. He gave no details of the alleged fraud.
The plant is located in Ararat, a town 50 kilometers south of Yerevan. It is one of Tsarukian’s business assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars which prosecutors moved to confiscate in 2023, invoking a controversial law that allows the state to seize money, property and companies deemed to have been acquired illegally.
The confiscation has to be sanctioned by court. No such court ruling is known to have been handed down so far.
Tsarukian, whose Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) is one of the three main opposition groups running in the June 7 parliamentary elections, said he is undaunted by Pashinian’s statement and will continue to fight for regime change in the country.
“This is a sign that they feel their end has come,” he told reporters during a campaign trip to the Syunik province.
“I was told, ‘Mr. Tsarukian, when you start rightly criticizing [Pashinian] he gets mad; they are going to harm your assets; [law-enforcement authorities] have already received such orders,” he said. “But I said that I can’t swap my homeland for my assets.”
Pashinian drew parallels between the Ararat plant’s nationalization and the Armenian government’s controversial seizure last summer of Armenia’s national electric utility that followed the arrest of its owner, Russian-Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetian. The latter set up in the following months what analysts now view as the country’s largest opposition group, the Strong Armenia alliance.
Pashinian pledged on Monday to “take out” Tsarukian, Karapetian and the leader of another major opposition force, former President Robert Kocharian, during a furious argument with a disgruntled voter in Yerevan. The prosecutors made clear on Tuesday that they will not investigate the legality of what critics see as death threats. The opposition leaders said, for their part, that Pashinian is exposing his fears of losing power as a result of the elections.
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