Tuesday, Armenian Tycoon’s Businesses Probed For Tax Fraud • Artak Hambardzumian • Astghik Bedevian Armenia - President Serzh Sarkisian (L) awards a state medal to businessman Samvel Aleksanian in Yerevan, 26 September 2015. The National Security Service (NSS) confirmed on Tuesday that it has launched a tax evasion investigation into Armenia’s largest retail chain controlled by Samvel Aleksanian, a wealthy businessman representing the former ruling Republican Party (HHK) in parliament. An NSS spokesperson told RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am) that the law-enforcement body is now looking to the Yerevan City supermarket chain’s financial statements and other records. The official said the NSS will give some details of the probe later this week. Neither Aleksanian nor Yerevan City has made any official statements on the audit yet. Aleksanian, 49, is one of Armenia’s richest men who has long effectively controlled lucrative imports of sugar, cooking oil and other basic foodstuffs. He has had close ties with the country’s former leaders, notably former President Serzh Sarkisian. The latter still heads the HHK. Aleksanian has been a member of the Armenian parliament since 2003. He always ran for the National Assembly on the HHK ticket. The inquiry into suspected tax evasion at Yerevan City food supermarkets followed a crackdown on corruption announced by Artur Vanetsian, the new head of the NSS, on May 19. Vanetsian pledged to target individuals who have long “stolen money from the state.”He said the NSS will also expose numerous cases of tax evasion. The NSS arrested late last week three senior executives of a customs brokerage firm accused of failing to pay millions of dollars worth of taxes. Vanetsian promised on Monday more corruption “revelations” in the coming days. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, who named Vanetsian as NSS head two days after taking office on May 8, said on Tuesday that the audit of Aleksanian’s supermarkets is part of a “process of establishing law and order in Armenia.” Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian (R) introduces the newly appointed chief of the State Revenue Committee Davit Ananian (L) to the Committee's staff, Yerevan,18May,2018 Pashinian stood by his earlier statements that his government will not be waging “vendettas” against members of the former ruling regime or individuals linked to them. “But there won’t be lawlessness either,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am). “If anyone tries to interpret this position as a sign of our weakness they will get a crushing blow. You can be sure about that.” “I am calling on everyone to sober up and fulfill their obligations to the state in full,” Pashinian went on. “Everyone is now exempt from corrupt obligations. But let no one think that they can deceive the state.” The premier specifically urged businesses to voluntarily compensate the state for “taxes not paid in the past.” They had better do that before being investigated by the NSS, he said. Meanwhile the new head of Armenia’s State Revenue Committee (SRC), Davit Ananian, clarified that the authorities suspect Yerevan City and a dozen other supermarket chains of using fraud scams to evade taxes in their retail sales of fresh agricultural produce. Ananian said he has already met their top executives and warned them to stop doing that. “We just gave them a few days’ time to sort out their [cash register-related] program issues and move on,” he said. Former Ruling Party Loses Two More Parliament Seats Armenia - Deputies from the Republican Party of Armenia attend a parliament session in Yerevan, 22 May 2018. One deputy defected while another was expelled from the parliamentary faction of Serzh Sarkisian’s Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) on Tuesday, reducing its majority in the National Assembly to only three seats. One of them, Shirak Torosian, broke ranks to vote for opposition leader Nikol Pashinian during the May 8 election of the country’s new prime minister, as did another HHK parliamentarian, Felix Tsolakian. The HHK leadership had ordered 11 other members of its 58-strong faction to back Pashinian’s candidacy under pressure from tens of thousands of people demonstrating in Yerevan. It condemned Torosian and Tsolakian for defying that decision. Consequently, the HHK faction decided to oust Torosian from its ranks on Tuesday. It issued a statement to that effect shortly after the lawmaker announced that he himself is quitting the parliament majority. In a Facebook post, Torosian, who was never formally affiliated with the former ruling party, cited the “incompatibility” of his and the HHK’s views on ongoing “political processes” in Armenia. He also indicated that another party, of which he is a member, supports fresh parliamentary elections sought by Pashinian but opposed by the HHK. The party called Hzor Hayrenik (Powerful Fatherland) mainly unites natives of Georgia’s Javakheti region mostly populated by ethnic Armenians. Torosian was also born and raised in the region bordering northwestern Armenia. The other parliamentarian, Artur Gevorgian, said he has decided to leave the HHK and terminate his membership in the party altogether. “I don’t want to see a struggle between a political force making up the [parliamentary] majority and the [Pashinian-led] popular movement,” he wrote on Facebook. “It is unnecessary and extremely dangerous.” Gevorgian, who is a former boxer and boxing coach, also signaled support the idea of snap elections. But he said they alone cannot solve the “existing political crisis.” Incidentally, Gevorgian is the son-in-law of Vladimir Gasparian, the former chief of the Armenian police. Pashinian fired Gasparian two days after taking office. But he stopped short of publicly criticizing the police general’s track record. The HHK held 58 seats in the 105-member parliament until the Pashinian-led protest movement forced Sarkisian to resign as prime minister on April 23. The formal and de facto defections mean that it now technically controls 55 parliament seats, just enough to block the new government’s bills and other initiatives. Government Accused Of ‘Political Pressure’ On Yerevan University Head • Anush Mkrtchian Armenia - Aram Simonian, the Yerevan State University rector, holds a news conference in his office, . The Yerevan State University (YSU) administration accused Armenia’s new government of exerting “political pressure” on its rector, Aram Simonian, on Tuesday after he was confronted by angry students demanding his resignation. Simonian, who is affiliated with the former ruling Republican Party (HHK), has faced growing pressure to step down since the April 23 resignation of Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian resulting from massive anti-government demonstrations. Students involved in the popular revolution led by Sarkisian’s successor, Nikol Pashinian, accuse him of mismanagement and corruption. They also accuse him of having abused his powers to spread HHK influence on Armenia’s largest and oldest university during his decade-long tenure. More than a hundred of them demonstrated outside the main YSU building in Yerevan on Tuesday morning before holding a tense meeting with Simonian in a university conference hall. They refused to leave the auditorium and began a sit-in there after he rejected their demands. The protest continued late in the evening. “We waited for about month, hoping that there will be some reforms in the university and that there will be some statements in support of the students,” said Davit Petrosian, a leader of the protesting students. “But the opposite happened.” Armenia - Students meet with Aram Simonian, the Yerevan State University rector, to demand his resignation, . Simonian insisted that the demands are “not legitimate” and that only a small percentage of YSU’s 17,000 or students are demonstrating against him. “This is not democracy, this is repression, including for my political views and party affiliation,” he told reporters. “I won’t make any concessions under duress.” Simonian went on to accuse Pashinian’s government of being behind the protests. He argued that two recently appointed government officials joined the students holed up in the YSU auditorium. In a statement released later in the day, the YSU administration likewise charged that the protests are being “guided” by the new government. It said that the protesters have not come up with any “legal grounds” for Simonian’s resignation and are targeting him because of his HHK affiliation. EU Envoy Impressed With Armenian ‘Revolution Of Mindsets’ • Harry Tamrazian Armenia - Piotr Switalski, head of the EU Delegation in Armenia, speaks at an event in Yerevan, 24 January 2018. The recent dramatic events changed not only Armenia’s government but also the “mindsets” of its citizens and earned the country a “very positive image” abroad, a senior European Union diplomat said on Tuesday. “I believe that what happened in Armenia is something very deep,” Piotr Switalski, the head of the EU Delegation in Yerevan, told RFE/L’s Armenian service in an interview. “It’s not just about a change in power, it’s not about bringing new faces or new political personalities into the government. It’s not about changing policies.” “This was a revolution of mindsets,” he said. “People decided to get rid of the remnants of past thinking, past syndromes. I believe that is something lasting. In particular, the young people [in Armenia] are different people now.” “The challenge for the [new] government and also for the society at large is to sustain this positive change and this positive energy which has started emanating from the people,” stressed Switalski. The envoy also praised Armenia’s former leadership, the leaders of protest movement that removed it from power as well as “other political and societal forces” for jointly ending the nearly month-long unrest. “I think that from the political point of view what happened in Armenia was very unique because the crisis which erupted in Armenia has been solved, defused peacefully and within the constitutional frameworks, which has sent a very powerful message to the outside world … This message is building a very positive image of Armenia in the outside world,” he said. “It is sending a powerful signal about the solidarity, unity and political maturity of the Armenian society,” added Switalski. The EU closely monitored the crisis in Armenia sparked by former President Serzh Sarkisian’s attempt to hold on to power after serving out his second presidential term on April 9. It repeatedly urged Armenian political factions to end the standoff through dialogue. Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, and Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president, sent a congratulatory letter to Nikol Pashinian, the main organizer of massive anti-Sarkisian protests, two days after he was elected prime minister on May 8. “We look forward to cooperating with you in your new position to further strengthen the relations between the European Union and Armenia,” they wrote. Press Review “Zhoghovurd” reports that senior members of the Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) were offended by the new government’s decision to invite only three of them to Monday’s official ceremonies to mark the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the first Armenian republic. HHK representatives claim that Ara Babloyan was invited in his capacity as a member of the HHK’s parliamentary faction, rather than speaker of the National Assembly. The party spokesman, Eduard Sharmazanov, condemned that as a “violation of protocol and ethics.” “This behavior by the National Assembly leadership is surprising,” comments “Zhoghovurd.” “You probably remember the humiliations to which the parliament and its leadership were periodically subjected during Serzh Sarkisian’s presidency and especially when he was preparing to become prime minister. The most vivid example of that is the composition of the new National Security Council determined through a law. The head of the legislative branch was not included in this very important state body.” The paper says Babloyan and his deputies did not complain about that then. “Zhamanak” reports that French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said during his visits to Azerbaijan and Armenia that France is ready to support “creative proposals” to accelerate the Karabakh peace process. “At the same time he said in Yerevan that both the status quo and the use of force are unacceptable,” writes the paper. It claims France and the two other mediating powers, the United States and Russia, are now in a state of “certain confusion” about the future of Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks. “Aravot” notes that unlike revolutionary regimes in many other countries Armenia’s new government is keen to stick to the constitution and laws during the ongoing political transition. The paper praises this “legalistic behavior” and sees only minor and temporary “deviations” from it. But it wonders how Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and his political team will be going about forcing snap parliamentary elections later this year. (Tigran Avetisian) Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL Copyright (c) 2018 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc. 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org