In the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia, the key stage of the structural formation of the new convocation has been completed: the distribution of leadership positions in twelve standing committees. By applying Dont’s proportional formula, the ruling power and the opposition have clarified their areas of responsibility, and a significant part of the positions has been assigned to the opposition blocs.

According to the constitutional law on the regulations of the National Assembly, the right to nominate the presidents and their deputies is distributed strictly proportionally among the factions. As a result of the calculations, the ruling “Civil Agreement” faction got the opportunity to nominate eight committee chairpersons and seven deputy chairpersons.

The opposition “Strong Armenia” faction got three positions of president and four deputies, while the “Armenia” alliance was assigned a quota of one president and deputy.

As a result of successive elections, political forces have fixed specific areas. Representatives of the “Civil Pact” will head the defense, state-legal, foreign relations, economic, education, healthcare, labor and Eurasian integration committees.

The “Strong Armenia” bloc has taken under its control the finance, credit and budget, territorial administration and agriculture commissions, as well as the European integration commissions. The only commission whose chairmanship was given to the “Armenia” faction is the sphere of human rights protection and public issues.

The positions of deputies have also been clearly distributed. the ruling power will have seven deputies, including in some commissions led by the opposition, “Strong Armenia” will appoint four deputies in the commissions for economic, defense, human rights and Eurasian issues, and the representative of the “Armenia” bloc will become the vice-chairman of the state legal commission.

This stage of the process ends with the official nomination of the candidates for the presidents of the commissions, after which the elections of the deputies will take place immediately at the meetings of the commissions.

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The former head of the Kazakh community, Ara Mkrtchyan, and five other former officials of the local self-government body were arrested. Law enforcers accuse them of illegally expropriating community lands with a total value of around 228 million drams through fake auctions.

According to the Armenian Investigative Committee, Ara Mkrtchyan, who led the community in 1996-2021, and who is also a former deputy of the “I have honor” faction of the National Assembly Anna Mkrtchyan is the father, he acted with prior agreement with other members of the staff. According to the materials of the proceedings, the key role in the criminal scheme was played by Mkrtchyan’s nephew, who held the position of the secretary of the municipal administration, as well as other members of the auction committee.

According to the main department of investigation of especially important cases of the Central Committee, during the years 2016-2019, the officials made false documents regarding the auctions that did not take place. On the basis of that fabricated paperwork, 28 units of communally-owned settlements and agricultural plots were formally expropriated from persons who were declared winners in the auctions.

The investigative body emphasizes that with these illegal actions, the community was deprived of the real possibility of legal management of the property it owns and of expropriating them in accordance with the letter of the law, as a result of which Kasakh suffered a particularly large amount of damage.

Currently, a public criminal prosecution has been initiated against Ara Mkrtchyan and five other former employees of the municipal administration with 28 counts under the articles of the former Criminal Code of abuse of authority and forgery. All six extras have been arrested, and the pre-investigative body will apply to the court with a motion to choose detention as a preventive measure against them.

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The Armenian opposition intends to impose strict controls on public spending amid an unprecedented budget deficit of $1.4 billion. The leadership of the Parliamentary sectoral committees should become a tool for fighting corruption in the regions and building a pragmatic economic dialogue with the EU.

On August 10, during a briefing with journalists in the National Assembly, the leader of the opposition faction “Strong Armenia” Narek Karapetyan it is catastrophic to call the current situation related to the lack of funds in the state treasury. This is exactly what he conditioned to take over the leadership of the parliamentary committee on financial and credit issues, the principle decision of their political power.

According to the deputy, the formed deficit requires an immediate transition to a regime of strict control over the distribution of finances.

The aspiration of the opposition to head the key sectoral committees is dictated by the need for real monitoring of the processes taking place in the places. Karapetyan emphasized that the faction has set a goal to root out corruption and shady transactions at the level of community purchases.

The politician is sure that the statements of the authorities about the decrease in the level of corruption should be reinforced with clear results that ordinary citizens will be able to see in the work of the city authorities.

During the briefing, special attention was paid to the foreign political vector of Armenia.

Referring to the topic of cooperation with the European Union, the leader of the faction called for a purely pragmatic approach. He expressed his belief that the dialogue with Europe should be aimed at the high-quality localization of advanced institutional experience and the significant expansion of bilateral trade volumes, which should be brought to the level of the existing indicators within the EAEU framework.

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