Media: Armenia’s ruling party rebels against PM Pashinyan

The Armenian Hraparak newspaper released an article about the intra-party problems surrounding the latest corruption case involving Parliament Speaker Alen Simonyan.

“Events surrounding the Chairman of the National Assembly Alen Simonyan and his family are taking an unexpected turn in the non-governmental sphere. The ‘Civil Contract’ faction is making exceptional attempts to demonstrate independence and resist the executive branch and its head,” Caliber.Az quotes Hraparak as saying.

“The fact is that yesterday, at a closed meeting of the ruling faction, MPs discussed the history of criminal cases related to procurement at the Ministry of Economy, in which the director and two employees of the Synergy company, one of whom is the wife of Alen Simonyan’s brother, were arrested and almost unanimously decided that injustice was happening to the detained employees, and this was a disrespectful attitude towards the head of the legislative body, and, accordingly, towards the ruling faction. And they decided to submit a guarantee to law enforcement agencies to change the restraining order.

At the end of the day, the collection of signatures had already been carried out: in the afternoon, MPs of the ruling party, one after another, rushed to the office of faction leader Hayk Konjoryan and signed a document that will be submitted to the court. As of 5-6 pm, our sources reported that 65 MPs from the ‘Civil Contract’ faction of 71 members signed, although such a large number of signatures was not necessary; one could be content with a dozen signatures.

The problem is that after the last parliamentary elections, there was an internal agreement in the ruling faction that in any criminal case, they should not give guarantees for anyone, so as not to interfere with the courts as if with the mandate of government representatives, but at the meeting of the faction on the eve of the meeting, they documented that what happened is unprecedented. It is a disgrace and they cannot ignore what has happened.

Of course, the members of the ruling party realized that the process has not a legal but a political component, and Nikol Pashinyan, by arresting the wife of his brother Alen Simonyan, is trying to bring the NA Speaker to his knees, and there is no guarantee that tomorrow each of them will not find themselves in the place of the NA Speaker, although he served Pashinyan more than they did.

Yesterday it was discussed behind the scenes of the ruling party that their statement will also become a litmus test in the relations between the authorities: if the court rejects the guarantees of more than 60 MPs, it will become clear that Nikol Pashinyan openly declared war against the parliament and its leader Alena Simonyan. Hovik Aghazaryan did not deny that such a scenario is possible," the report says.