Wednesday,
Radical Group Insists On Another Snap Election In Armenia
• Ruzanna Stepanian
Armenia - Varuzhan Avetisian (secon from left) and other leaders of the Sasna
Tsrer party start their election campaign in Yerevan, November 26, 2018.
A leader of a nationalist party who stormed a police base in Yerevan together
with his supporters in 2016 has reiterated its claims that early parliamentary
elections will again be held in Armenia in the near future.
Varuzhan Avetisian said the newly elected Armenian parliament dominated by
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s allies will have to be dissolved because it
will fail to cope with challenges facing the country.
“That this parliament will not be able to fully serve its [five-year] term is
obvious to us,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenians service (Azatutyun.am).
Avetisian’s Sasna Tsrer party is a rebranded version of Founding Parliament, a
radical movement that challenged the former Armenian government. The recently
established party is named after an armed group that seized the police base in
Yerevan’s Erebuni district in July 2016.
The three dozen gunmen led by Avetisian demanded that then President Serzh
Sarkisian free Founding Parliament’s jailed leader, Zhirayr Sefilian, and step
down. They laid down their weapons after a two-week standoff with security
forces which left three police officers dead.
Despite standing trial on serious charges, Avetisian and the vast majority of
the other arrested gunmen were set free shortly after Pashinian came to power
in May in a wave of anti-Sarkisian protests. Sefilian was also released from
prison following the “velvet revolution.”
Sasna Tsrer was one of the 11 political groups that ran in the December 9
parliamentary elections. According to the official election results, it won
only 1.8 percent of the vote, compared with 70.4 percent polled by Pashinian’s
My Step alliance.
Avetisian and his associates declared at the start of the election campaign
last month that the new National Assembly will have to be dissolved within two
years.
Pashinian reacted furiously to those statements on November 26. He warned that
Sasna Tsrer leaders and activists will “feel the taste of asphalt” if they
attempt to destabilize the political situation in Armenia. The party condemned
Pashinian’s “threats.”
Avetisian insisted that the holding of another snap ballot is a matter of time.
He did not specify just how his party will strive to force such polls, saying
only that “life” and “public opinion” will necessitate their conduct.
He also said: “I’m sure that Mr. Pashinian is a farsighted and reasonable
person, and when conditions become ripe he will opt for that solution. It will
only help to maintain his approval rating.”
Authorities Seek Arrest Of Former Kocharian Aide
• Ruzanna Stepanian
Armenia - Armen Gevorgian, April 22, 2008.
Armenian law-enforcement authorities have moved to arrest a former top aide to
former President Robert Kocharian after bringing more criminal charges against
him.
The once powerful official, Armen Gevorgian, has also been charged with
assisting in an “overthrow of the constitutional order,” corruption and money
laundering, his lawyer told RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am) on
Wednesday.
The lawyer, Erik Aleksanian, said he is not authorized yet to divulge details
of the grave accusations. He said his client categorically denies them.
“We certainly believe that the accusations are fabricated and have nothing to
do with reality,” added Aleksanian.
A court will open on Thursday hearings on Gevorgian’s pre-trial arrest sought
by the Special Investigative Service (SIS).
Gevorgian was already charged in August with obstructing justice in the wake of
a disputed 2008 presidential election. The SIS claims that he pressured a
member of Armenia’s Constitutional Court to uphold the official election
results that gave victory to Kocharian’s preferred successor, Serzh Sarkisian.
That accusation, also denied by Gevorgian, seems to be based on a leaked U.S.
diplomatic cable sent to Washington in March 2008 by Joseph Pennington, the
then U.S. charge d’affaires in Yerevan.
Pennington met with the Constitutional Court judge, Valeri Poghosian, two days
before the court rejected an appeal lodged by Levon Ter-Petrosian, the main
opposition presidential candidate. In that message publicized by Wikileaks, the
diplomat cited Poghosian as alleging that Kocharian has “fixed” the upcoming
court ruling.
Poghosian, who retired in 2014, did not explicitly confirm the claims
attributed to him when he spoke to RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am) in
August. “I did not say such a thing. I told [American diplomats] some facts
which they portray as pressure,” he said.
Armenia - President Robert Kocharian (R) and his senior adviser Armen Gevorgian
at an election campaign rally in Yerevan, January 26, 2003.
Gevorgian was the chief of Kocharian’s staff during the final years of the
latter’s ten-year rule that came to an end in April 2008. He went on to serve
as Armenia’s deputy prime minister and hold other senior positions in the
Sarkisian administration.
The fresh charges against Gevorgian were leveled just four days after Kocharian
was arrested on charges of illegally using the armed forces against
Ter-Petrosian supporters who protested in Yerevan on March 1-2, 2008. The SIS
says that amounted to an “overthrow of the constitutional order.”
Kocharian strongly denies the charges. He says that Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian is waging a political “vendetta” against him.
Pashinian played a key role in the 2008 protests. Eight protesters and two
police servicemen died when they were quelled by security forces.
Armenian General’s Pre-Trial Arrest Extended
• Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia - Retired General Manvel Grigorian speaks at a congress of the
Yerkrapah Union in Yerevan, 18 February 2017.
A court in Yerevan on Wednesday allowed investigators to keep Manvel Grigorian,
a retired army general prosecuted on corruption charges, under arrest for two
more months.
In a ruling condemned by Grigorian’s lawyers, the court again refused to
release him from custody on bail.
Grigorian was arrested when security forces raided his properties in and around
the town of Echmiadzin in June. They found many weapons, ammunition, medication
and field rations for soldiers provided by the Armenian Defense Ministry. They
also discovered canned food and several vehicles donated by Armenians at one of
Grigorian’s mansions.
The once powerful general denies the accusations of illegal arms possession and
embezzlement leveled against him. His lawyers have repeatedly demanded his
release, saying that he is suffering from cancer and a number of other serious
illnesses.
One of the lawyers, Arsen Mkrtchian, insisted that his client cannot receive
adequate medical treatment in prison. He accused the judge in the case, Marine
Melkonian, of turning the court into a “branch of the Special Investigative
Service,” a law-enforcement body that requested Grigorian’s continued
incarceration.
“I don’t know of any other accused person who is kept under arrest for so long
despite suffering serious diseases and being ready to compensate [the state]
for the damage,” Mkrtchian told reporters after the court’s decision.
The lawyer also said that he is trying to convince Grigorian to appeal to the
European Court of Human Rights. The general has been reluctant to do so, he
said.
In October, Grigorian offered to donate his vast land holdings near Echmiadzin
to the state. His lawyers presented the offer as a gesture of goodwill.
Grigorian, 62, served as Armenia’s deputy defense minister from 2000-2008.
Until his arrest he was also the chairman of the Yerkrapah Union of Karabakh
war veterans, an organization which was particularly influential in the 1990s
and the early 2000s. He was reelected to the Armenian parliament in April 2017
on the ticket of then President Serzh Sarkisian’s Republican Party.
Press Review
Lragir.am discusses some analysts’ belief that there are no real opposition
parties in Armenia’s newly elected parliament. The publication agrees that
Gagik Tsarukian’s Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) should not be taken seriously
anymore and notes that Edmon Marukian’s Bright Armenia party is regarded by
some as a “puppet opposition.” “The issue of a new kind of opposition, a
counterweight to the government is really pressing,” it says. But it insists
that the former ruling Republican Party (HHK) is too discredited and
“unconstructive” to be the answer to the problem.
“Aravot” tries to explain the failure of another party, the Armenian
Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), to win any parliament seats. The
paper says that while there may be something “romantic” about Dashnaktsutyun’s
anti-Turkish nationalist rhetoric the party’s close ties to the former Armenian
governments have alienated many voters. “The party should have tried to
preserve its positive image which took shape among a certain part of the
electorate during [former President Levon] Ter-Petrosian’s rule,” it says in an
editorial. “In this latest election campaign Dashnaktsutyun revived its
socialist creed, criticizing government plans to cut poverty benefits and
downsize the state apparatus. But it’s impossible to restore within two weeks a
reputation that has been tarnished for the past 20 years. Having no deputies in
the National Assembly could actually be useful for the party in terms of
rethinking its activities and cooperating with other nationalist forces active
in Armenia.”
“Zhoghovurd” is scathing about a demonstration that was held in Yerevan on
Tuesday by about hundred supporters of former President Robert Kocharian
demanding his release from prison. The paper says the protest was organized by
a hitherto unknown group called the Armenian National Alliance. It cites some
representatives of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s political team as saying
that the group’s leader, Armen Minasian, sought to cooperate with their
movement shortly after the velvet revolution. It also notes that Kocharian’s
younger son voiced support for the protest on social media.
(Lilit Harutiunian)
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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