Hraparak: ARF-D to join coalition after April 24

11:11 * 21.03.15

The opposition Armenian Revolutionary Federation-Dashnaksutyun (ARF-D)
is expected to join the governing coalition after the April 24
Genocide Remembrance Day, the paper says, citing sources close to the
party.

The same sources have reportedly said that an agreement was reached
over giving ARF-D three cabinet portfolios, the Ministries of
Diaspora, Labor and Social Affairs, and Foreign Affairs. But at the
foreign ministry, only a deputy minister’s post is going to be
reserved for an ARF-D member. “The rest will be clear after the
[amended] Constitution is adopted,” the source said, adding that Levon
Lazarian, a former education minister, is a potential candidate to
hold the office.

But the paper claims that Lazarian’s name is also circulated as the
future minister of diaspora. As for Hranush Hakobyan, the incumbent
minister, she will, in most likelihood, go to Russia, a plan which the
paper claims is her crystal dream as a former secretary of Komsomol
(All-Union Leninist Young Communist League of which Hakobyan was the
First Secretary from 1985 until 1990). As for the Ministry of Labor
and Social Affairs, the paper says it will be headed by either Artsvik
Minasyan, a member of the ARF-D faction in parliament, or Sergey
Lokyan, an advisor to the prime minister.

As for Aghvan Vardanyan, a former social affairs minister, the paper
says he will be in charge of the political front, the ARF-D’s Supreme
Body, with the perspective to make Istanbul a “sea of blood”.