OPPOSITION LEADER SAYS ECONOMIC GROWTH IS A BALLOON

Panorama.am
13:00 24/10/06

Speaking about the recent incident with Hakob Hakobyan, sanctioned
to be arrested by the parliament, Gagik Melikyan, secretary of the
Armenian Republican Party (HHK), said they did not know about the
dealings of Hakobyan. Otherwise they would not accept him in their
party, he said. The deputy thinks that Hakobyan’s behavior discredits
the state structures, as he is a public official. He said HHK voted for
the sanction of arrest on the logic that "he may prove his innocence
if he can."

Grigor Harutunyan, secretary of Justice block, an opposition fraction,
said many HHK members asked them to participate in the voting so that
they could claim that the opposition voted against Hakobyan’s arrest.

Harutunyan said later Robert Kocharyan could claim that the
anticriminal balloon exploded also saying the balloon is the economic
growth claimed by power authorities.