Opposition leader Gagik Tsarukian on Thursday linked his imprisonment to the alleged rigging of last month’s parliamentary elections and said it will not stop his political activities.
Meanwhile, Armenian law-enforcement authorities arrested another opposition politician who ran in the June 7 elections on the ticket of Tsarukian’s Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK). Aregnaz Manukian is prosecuted as part of a high treason case against Andranik Tevanian, who was second on the list of the BHK’s election candidates.
Tevanian was arrested on May 22 two days after Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian announced espionage charges against him during an election campaign rally. The Investigative Committee claims that he was recruited by a foreign, presumably Russian, intelligence service two years ago.
According to it, he was paid $622,000 to supply state secrets, including confidential details of a closed-door parliamentary hearing on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border demarcation held in April 2024. Unlike Tevanian, who had resigned from the parliament in August 2023, Manukian still held a parliament seat at the time.
She is now accused of disclosing classified information provided to lawmakers during the hearing. She denies the accusation. Manukian claimed that she does not remember attending the hearing after investigators searched her apartment and questioned her as a witness late last month.
The outspoken oppositionist was among Tsarukian supporters who rallied outside a court building in Yerevan on Tuesday to show support for the BHK leader following his arrest on fraud and money laundering charges strongly denied by him.
The BHK was one of the three main opposition groups that challenged the ruling Civil Contract party in the June 7 elections. Pashinian repeatedly pledged to “bring on their knees” and “take out” their top leaders during the election campaign.
These and other opposition contenders refuse to accept the official election results that gave victory to Civil Contract. In particular, they point to the Central Election Commission’s extraordinary decision to cancel the results in three precincts but not rerun the ballot there. The decision appears to have prevented the BHK from clearing a 4 percent vote threshold for being represented in the new Armenian parliament.
“Despite all the blows and attacks, the BHK garnered enough votes to enter the National Assembly,” Tsarukian said in a statement released from prison. “A simple theft took place before your very eyes. By an arbitrary decision of the current authorities, an entire faction was not allowed to be in the National Assembly.”
“The obviously false, fabricated case brough against me is a continuation of all this,” he claimed.
“The decisions of the Central Election Commission and the Constitutional Court, criminal cases, and detention cannot change my thinking or my value system,” added Tsarukian.
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