Monday,
Former Ruling Party To Run In Armenian Elections
• Sisak Gabrielian
Armenia - President Serzh Sarkisian and Defense Minister Vigen Sargsian arrive
at a conference venue in Yerevan, 20Apr2017.
The former ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) has officially confirmed
its participation in upcoming parliamentary elections and nominated former
Defense Minister Vigen Sargsian as its top candidate.
The HHK announced the decision late on Sunday after a five-hour meeting of its
governing board chaired by the party’s top leader, former President Serzh
Sarkisian.
Sargsian told reporters that the board approved the list of the HHK’s election
candidates that will be submitted to the Central Election Commission on
Wednesday. He declined to publicize the list, saying only that it will be
topped by him.
Sargsian also said that Serzh Sarkisian will not run as a candidate in the snap
elections scheduled for December 9 despite remaining the party’s chairman. Nor
will the former president be involved in the HHK’s election campaign, he said.
Sarkisian, 64, resigned in April amid mass protests triggered by his attempt to
extend his decade-long rule. He has kept a very low profile since then, leaving
it to his political allies to comment on political developments and
occasionally challenge Nikol Pashinian, the protest leader elected prime
minister in May.
The 43-year-old Vigen Sargsian is a U.S.-educated protégé of the ex-president
who served as Armenia’s defense minister from 2016-2018. He was widely regarded
as Serzh Sarkisian’s potential successor before the dramatic regime change in
the country.
Most observers believe that the HHK is now too unpopular to pose a serious
threat to Pashinian. Some of them say that it will struggle to win any seats in
the new parliament.
Sargsian, who was elected the HHK’s first deputy chairman on Sunday, admitted
that Pashinian’s alliance will almost certainly win the December elections.
“The upcoming elections will not determine who will be in power,” he said.“That
question seems to have already been answered, and I think that the prime
minister whom our fellow citizens rallying in the streets designated as the
people’s candidate … will continue to perform his duties. He has something to
prove … and we are prepared to hold him in check in the future parliament.”
Sargsian further declared that the HHK is aiming to finish second in the polls
because it is now the sole genuinely opposition force in Armenia.
“I think that if Nikol Pashinian is sincere about his intention to build a new
Armenia he will vote for the Republican Party when he finds himself alone in
the polling booth,” claimed the former defense chief. “Because he should see no
other alternatives in terms of his opponents in the future parliament. If he
doesn’t do that, it will mean what he wants to have a puppet opposition.”
Pashinian accused the HHK and Serzh Sarkisian in particular of corruption,
mismanagement and human rights abuses during the protest movement
The HHK won the last parliamentary elections held in April 2017, heavily
relying on its administrative and financial resources. It was greatly helped by
wealthy government-linked individuals accused by opposition forces and media of
bribing and bullying voters. It is still not clear how many of them remain
allied to the former ruling party.
Pashinian claimed last month that the HHK still counts on the backing of
“criminal” local elites.
Pashinian Allies Dismiss Republicans’ Election Chances
• Ruzanna Stepanian
Armenia - Supporters wave the ruling Republican Party's election campaign flags
at a rally in Yerevan, 14Mar2017.
Former President Serzh Sarkisian’s Republican Party (HHK) is unlikely to win
any seats in Armenia’s new parliament, political allies of Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian said on Monday.
HHK leaders acknowledged over the weekend that Pashinian’s Civil Contract party
will almost certainly win the snap general elections slated for December 9.
They said their party will be aiming for second place in the unfolding
parliamentary race.
Two lawmakers representing Civil Contract dismissed those statements,
predicting that the HHK will most probably not be represented in the next
National Assembly at all.
“I insist that both the leader [Serzh Sarkisian] and the top candidate of the
Republican Party … do not know the people of Armenia,” one of them, Alen
Simonian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian service. “And not knowing the people’s
troubles and often times being the cause of those troubles, they can’t be
perceived as opposition by me. I regard them as a bunch of revanchists.”
“I don’t consider any HHK’s presence in the [new] National Assembly realistic,”
said Simonian. “They have already been present there. The people of Armenia
have seen what happens when they run their country.”
Another Civil Contract lawmaker, Hrachya Hakobian, was even more categorical.
“If they had rebranded themselves, if they had gotten rid of the HHK acronym
some of their members might deserve to be in the parliament and might actually
win parliament seats,” he said.
Civil Contract is expected to enter the race in an alliance with mainly
non-partisan politicians, civic activists and other public figures supporting
Pashinian. While it is widely regarded as the election favorite, no opinion
polls indicating the chances of other contenders have been released yet.
The HHK, which won the last parliamentary elections held in April 2017, needs
to garner at least 5 percent of the vote in order to win any parliament seats.
The legal vote threshold for alliances is set at 7 percent.
Likely Supplier Of Armenia’s First Fighter Jets ‘Chosen’
• Sargis Harutyunyan
Armenia - Defense Minister Davit Tonoyan speaks at a news conference in
Yerevan, .
The government has selected the type of first-ever fighter jets which it is
planning to acquire for Armenia’s armed forces, Defense Minister Davit Tonoyan
said on Monday.
“I can put it this way: the choice already been made and some
financial-technical issues are being sorted out,” he told a news conference.
In June, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian photographed himself in the cockpit of
a Russian Sukhoi Su-30SM warplane parked at the Erebuni airbase in Yerevan.
Russian media reported afterwards that that Yerevan is now negotiating with
Moscow on the purchase of such sophisticated aircraft.
Other news reports said last month that Sweden has offered to sell Armenia
lighter JAS 39 Gripen jets manufactured by the Swedish aerospace company Saab.
Tonoyan did not deny those reports. “There is no decision regarding Gripen at
the moment,” he said. “There is another offer on the table from another partner
which is being very seriously considered, and a decision will be made very soon
regarding acquisitions.”
The minister implied that the offer was made by Russia. But he did not go into
details.
RUSSIA -- An Su-30 fighter jet of the Russian air force launches a missile
during maneuvers in southern Russia, September 27, 2018
The Moscow-based daily “Kommersant” claimed in June that a Russian-Armenian
deal signed in 2012 called for the delivery of at least 12 Su-30SMs to Armenia
but that the Armenian side did not receive them due to “financial
difficulties.” The paper said Moscow now hopes to reach an agreement with new
Armenian government on implementing that multimillion-dollar deal “as soon as
possible.”
The Armenian Air Force currently consists of 15 or so low-flying Su-25 jets
designed for air-to-ground missions.
Su-30SM can perform a broader range of military tasks with more long-range and
precision-guided weapons. It is a more advanced version of a heavy fighter jet
developed by the Sukhoi company in the late 1980s. The Russian military
commissioned the first batch of such aircraft in 2012.
Tonoyan first confirmed Yerevan’s plans to acquire “multirole” warplanes in
August. The Armenian army, he told military officials, needs them because “no
missile system can be a substitute for this capacity in terms of flexibility
and resilience.” Tonoyan made the comments more than a week after visiting
Moscow and meeting with a top executive of Rosoboronexport, Russia’s state-run
arms exporter.
Armenian Military Gears Up For Syria Deployment
Syria - Syrians walk by a poster in Arabic that reads, "Thank you guardians of
the homeland," in Aleppo, January 18, 2018.
Armenia is pressing ahead with plans to deploy military doctors and demining
experts in Syria, Defense Minister Davit Tonoyan said on Monday.
Tonoyan told reporters that the Armenian military and other relevant parties
are now completing “memorandum-related procedures” required for such a
deployment.
“It could be done very quickly,” he said in comments cited by the Armenpress
news agency. “It could happen before the end of this year or early next year.”
“The group is fully prepared, it can leave [for Syria] immediately after that
process is complete,” he added.
Yerevan’s plans to launch a “humanitarian mission” in Syria were first
announced by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian following his September 8 talks in
Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Tonoyan clarified afterwards that
the Armenian contingent will include about 100 medics, sappers and other
military personnel tasked with protecting them.
According to one of Tonoyan’s deputies, Gabriel Balayan, they will be primarily
helping civilians in the war-ravaged city of Aleppo. Balayan told RFE/RL’s
Armenian service on September 11 that the deployment will be carried out “at
the request of the Syrian government.”
John Bolton, U.S. President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, discussed
the issue with Pashinian and Tonoyan when he visited Yerevan on October 25.
“The prime minister said this was not going to be military assistance, it would
be purely humanitarian,” Bolton said after the talks. “I think that’s
important. It would be a mistake for anybody else to get involved militarily in
the Syrian conflict at the moment.”
Russia has been trying to legitimize its strong military presence in Syria,
criticized by the West, by getting other countries to also deploy troops there.
A top Russian military official said in August 2017 Armenia and Serbia are
ready to join a multinational “coalition” which Moscow hoped would help its
soldiers clear landmines.
The former Armenian government seemed reluctant to commit troops for such a
mission. Speaking at the UN General Assembly in September 2017, then President
Serzh Sarkisian said Armenian deployment in Syria requires a UN mandate.
An estimated 80,000 ethnic Armenians lived in Syria and Aleppo in particular
before the outbreak of the bloody civil war there in 2011. Most of them have
since fled the country. Thousands of Syrian Armenians have taken refuge in
Armenia.
Press Review
(Saturday, November 10)
A Russian political analyst, Alexei Malashenko, assures “168 Zham” that
Armenia’s failure to replace Yuri Khachaturov by another Armenian secretary
general of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty (CSTO) will not seriously
hurt its relationship with Russia. Malashenko argues that Russian-Armenian
military ties remain strong. But, he says, the CSTO issue could be exploited by
political opponents of the new Armenian government.
“Zhoghovurd” reports that the Armenian Revolutionary Federation
(Dashnaktsutyun) is poised to release its list of candidates for the December 9
parliamentary elections. The paper expects to see few new names there, saying
that prominent part figures such as Armen Rustamian, Artsvik Minasian and Davit
Lokian will also run for the parliament on an individual basis. It notes that
unlike in the last elections both Dashnaktsutyun and other major parties are
planning to have their leading members run in nationwide constituencies as
well. It wonders whether this will help Dashnaktsutyun win seats in the next
National Assembly.
“Those who resent the new government’s staffing policy and the incompetence of
newly appointed officials are certainly right,” editorializes “Hraparak.” “They
are right to believe that because of young and inexperienced rulers there has
been -- and there will be -- a catastrophic decline in professionalism in our
country. And the complaints of those people who say that the former cadres did
a better job and were more competent and efficient in their areas are
absolutely understandable. But we cannot fail to counter that under the former
regime there was corruption, stagnation and a tradition of getting things done
through nepotism … and other vicious practices. It is certainly too early to be
happy and claim that corruption has been eliminated, that only worthy
individuals will be promoted and that we have already gotten out of the swamp …
But there is no doubt that the new government has breathed a fresh life,
aroused hopes and showed corrupt officials and weeds grown in shadow of their
rich daddies their place.”
(Tatev Danielian)
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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