Who was the beneficiary of what happened in the Parliament?
A lot has been said about the fact that there are various disagreements in the Armenian authorities. It is constantly noted that there are opposite poles within the Civil Contract, which, even if silently, but bitterly fight against each other, trying to strengthen their own positions and gain beneficial status. These problems are gradually coming to the surface. It turns out that the strong team, which Nikol Pashinyan is constantly proud of, shows deep serious cracks, which were not so clearly highlighted earlier.
Basically, the top representatives of Pashinyan’s administration openly proved almost everything that has been said about them with facts for a long time. It’s one thing to talk about it, it’s completely another thing when we witness it publicly. Thus, the authorities are gradually showing their true face, what kind of value system they have, that what they say about the state and the homeland is just a toast, nothing else. It is obvious that currently there are intra-clan “conflicts” unfolding in KP, that is, the representatives of the law enforcement authorities have offended the authorities in some way, and the latter are trying to show their attitude. In the fight against each other, various teams in the authorities are even ravaging in order to deepen the spheres of influence. To add, such an attitude is characteristic of corrupt authorities, which cannot share anything with each other.
The incident that happened in the parliament the other day was an example of the above-mentioned disagreements, which have deep roots. Thus, under Pashinyan’s compulsion, the authorities organized hearings in the parliament related to the fight against crime. All the law enforcement officers were at the National Assembly to present the situation in the country. In short, it became clear from Ghazaryan’s speech that, to put it mildly, the criminal situation in Armenia is terrible (particularly serious crimes have increased by 58.8% in the last five years). Those responsible for the sphere presented a rather tragic and cruel picture of crimes and the criminal situation in the country in the National Assembly, which made it clear that the RA criminology situation is catastrophically bad. The picture becomes even more tragic, because those in charge of the sector, instead of hanging their heads in shame from their shameful management and submitting a resignation letter, proudly talk about the double-digit indicators of increasing crime.
Argishti Kyaramyan, chairman of the RA Investigative Committee, announced that the number of crimes has significantly increased with the introduction of the patrol service. At the same time, Hovik Aghazaryan said that custody is used as a tool of pressure to extract testimony. These are statements, after which political consequences should have been made, but not only were no consequences made, but the same Kyaramyan also made a third statement, saying: “You call and ask for different things, and then talk about patronage. Are you fighting against corruption this way?” What has been said indicates that Nikol Pashinyan’s statement that “there is no corruption in Armenia” is another manipulative bluff, which was simply said in order to create another crooked mirror reality for people. Or the same Hovik Aghazaryan, who had not declared property worth 5 million drams until 2018, today contemptuously declares that “it’s not $300,000, it’s $200,000.”
What happened in the parliament was more reminiscent of a “meeting” of a criminal world than a parliamentary discourse. In other words, according to the theses voiced by Aghazaryan and Kyaramyan, we can state that Pashinyan’s rule is a classic authoritarian regime, where everything serves to fulfill the whims of the ruling pyramid. What happened proves the comprehensive crisis in which Armenia has found itself today. What we witnessed was a slap to the country’s political leadership, moreover, what happened was an open violation of the constitutional order when high-ranking state officials behave that way.
As for Kyaramyan’s fate and tenure, it became clear during the discussion that took place yesterday on Public TVl, when Petros Ghazaryan, with his very first question that “there is a criminal subculture behavior and manners among the law enforcement forces,” proves the fact that Pashinyan, par for the course for himself, tries to get rid of unwanted persons by someone else’s hand. If Nikol Pashinyan does not remove Kyaramyan, he mechanically shares his ideas, which means that all this happened under his patronage, and it is not excluded that the spinning wheel of what happened will start spinning faster. Moreover, it is not excluded that Pashinyan may lose control within the team and we may witness a palace coup.
By the way, while Kyaramyan was talking about patronage in the parliament, others were talking about using criminal cases as a way to exert pressure. All episodes are plain facts, which have been announced for years (various opposition figures are arrested, criminal cases are “closed”, dozens of violence cases are recorded), the authorities either gave incoherent answers to all this, or simply avoided the topic.
P.S. Nikol Pashinyan makes his own teammates, including all state institutions, complicit in the violations and misdemeanors committed by him, because he does not want to be solely responsible for what happened and is doing his best to make sure that everything is interconnected in order to avoid possible “escapes”.
Armen Hovasapyan
