Authoritarian “people’s distress”. Their own is always right

The Chairman of the National Assembly of Armenia, Ruben Rubinyan, placed the responsibility of the incident in the parliament on the representatives of the “Strong Armenia” opposition faction.

He stated that he strongly condemns the behavior of faction leader Narek Karapetyan and deputy Garnik Davtyan, whose actions, according to his assertion, started the fight. Moreover, Rubinyan expressed his full support for the actions of the deputies of the ruling “Civil Agreement” party.

Answering the journalists’ question why he didn’t invite the security guards to the hall earlier, Rubinyan stated that he did just that, and that’s how he managed to stop the fight.

“As for my assessment, I gave it in the hall and I can repeat it. I strongly condemn the behavior of the leader of the “Strong Armenia” faction. Let me remind you that he insulted the deputy who was speaking from the podium, and then got up to hit him. I strongly condemn Garnik Davtyan, deputy of the “Strong Armenian Name” faction, who started the incident with his first blow. I fully support the “Civil Agreement”, which did what it did,” said the Deputy Chairman of the National Assembly.

Rubinyan reminded that in the first session of the current parliament, he called on the opposition to follow the norms of correct behavior. According to him, he warned that the “Civil Agreement” prefers to follow the path of courtesy and respect, but if the opposition refuses this approach, then it is ready to respond proportionately to its actions. “I think we saw what that means in practice,” he added.

Commenting on the opposition’s claims that the incident was planned in advance, Rubinyan called them absurd. According to him, such accusations would mean that he and deputy Narek Karapetyan agreed in advance that the latter would injure his colleague and then try to hit him. Similarly, he noted, it should be assumed that they agreed in advance with Garnik Davtyan to attack MP Taron Chakhoyan.

“You understand how absurd it sounds. They accuse us of organizing it, which they started,” said Rubinyan. He also called it strange the fact that the opposition representatives, on the one hand, start the fight, and on the other hand, rebuke the speaker of the parliament for not calling the security guards earlier.

Rubinyan emphasized that, in his opinion, he prevented the further deterioration of the situation and protected the opposition MPs from more serious consequences. “I think they should thank me for protecting them from impending danger. I am not sure that I managed to fully protect everyone. In any case, I saw that some deputies, I won’t say that they were injured, but they were injured. There is nothing critical. The most important thing is that Edgar Ghazaryan came out of this situation completely unharmed,” he said.