Thursday, Armenian Parliament Approves Asset Seizures Armenia -- Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and members of his cabinet at a parliament session in Yerevan, December 4, 2019. Armenia’s parliament passed in the first reading on Thursday a government bill allowing authorities to confiscate private properties and other assets deemed to have been acquired illegally. Under the package of legal amendments drafted by the Armenian government late last year, prosecutors will be able to investigate individuals in case of having “sufficient grounds to suspect” that the market value of their assets exceeds their “legal incomes” by more than 25 million drams ($52,400). Should the prosecutors find such discrepancies they can ask courts to nationalize those assets even if their owners are not found guilty of corruption or other criminal offenses. The latter will have to prove the legality of their holdings if they are to retain them. During a parliament debate on Wednesday, Justice Minister Rustam Badasian insisted that corruption suspects, notably current and former state officials, are the main targets of the the bill portrayed by the government as a major anti-corruption measure. The authorities will also use it against crime figures and carriers of “criminal subculture,” he said. “Nobody beyond this circle can fall under the jurisdiction of this law except in cases where assets were artificially registered in a particular person’s name,” Badasian told lawmakers. The minister thus sought to allay fears that many well-to-do Armenians will now risk losing their properties. He specifically ruled out the confiscation of assets acquired with remittances received from abroad. The bill was tentatively backed by 100 members of the 132-seat National Assembly. They included deputies from the ruling My Step bloc and the opposition Bright Armenia Party (LHK). Still, LHK leader Edmon Marukian voiced some misgivings about the effectiveness of the measure. He said that corrupt officials who registered their wealh in their relatives’ name may well be let off the hook. Marukian said his party will propose a number of amendments when the bill is debated in the second reading. The opposition Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) also said that it will propose changes to the bill. BHK deputies abstained in Thursday’s parliament vote. Other critics of the government have challenged the legality of the government plans for asset seizures. They also claim that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian is intent on a far-reaching “redistribution of property” in the country. Pashinian has denied having such plans. He insisted in December that the planned asset forfeiture is essential for rooting out corruption and will not be arbitrary. Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigorian openly objected to the bill at the time, however. Speaking at a cabinet meeting, the former banker said he is worried that it could scare away investors and lead to capital flight from Armenia. Pashinian’s Party Hires ‘Former Regime Backers’ For Referendum • Astghik Bedevian Armenia -- Campaign banners urging Armenians to vote for constitutional changes sought by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, Yerevan, March 5, 2020. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s Civil Contract party has been criticized by some of its political allies for hiring several hundred people previously linked to Armenia’s former authorities to conduct the upcoming referendum on controversial constitutional amendments sought by it. Under Armenian law, the two rival camps campaigning for and against the draft amendments are each allowed to name two of the seven members of some 2,000 precinct election commissions that will handle the April 5 referendum in polling stations across the country. They both practically filled these quotas by last weekend’s legal deadline. It emerged that more than 500 commission members appointed by Civil Contract, which leads the “Yes” campaign, had already been chosen by the former ruling Republican Party (HHK) and its former coalition partners to sit on election commissions formed for December 2018 parliamentary elections. Critics claim that at least some of these individuals were involved in vote irregularities that had marred previous Armenian elections. Vahagn Hovakimian, a leading Civil Contract member, dismissed the criticism on Thursday. He said that the “Yes” campaign has carried out background checks on those commission members and found that only one of them was implicated in electoral fraud. That person has been disqualified from the referendum process as a result, he said. Hovakimian also argued that the 2018 elections, held six months after the Pashinian-led “Velvet Revolution,” were widely recognized as free and fair. A senior representative of former President Levon Ter-Petrosian’s Armenian National Congress (HAK) party dismissed this explanation, insisting that Pashinian’s political team has recruited people notorious for a “very dubious behavior.” “People who were tainted during [past] electoral processes must never again deal with [new] electoral processes,” Armen Khachatrian told RFE/RL’s Armenian service. “The authorities should have been very careful.” Khachatrian complained in this regard that only 180 of some 1,200 people nominated by the HAK have been appointed to the referendum commissions by the “Yes” campaign. Hovakimian countered that Civil Contract could not have picked more HAK nominees because of the limited number of commission seats. Also, he said, there are far fewer commission members representing other parties supporting the proposed constitutional changes. The amendments call for ending the powers of the chairman and six other judges of Armenia’s seven-member Constitutional Court who had been installed by former governments. Pashinian has repeatedly accused them of maintaining links to the “corrupt former regime” and obstructing judicial reforms. Pashinian’s political opponents and other critics say that he is simply seeking to fill the country’s highest court with his loyalists. They have also denounced the referendum as unconstitutional. Tsarukian-Backed Mayor Denies Charges • Artak Khulian Armenia -- Abovian Mayor Vahagn Gevorgian speaks to reporters, March 5, 2020. A town mayor linked to businessman Gagik Tsarukian’s opposition Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) on Thursday strongly denied criminal charges brought against him earlier this week. Mayor Vahagn Gevorgian of Abovian, a town 15 kilometers north of Yerevan, was charged with criminal negligence. Prosecutors said that he deliberately failed to stop a private company from “seizing” municipal land in Abovian and illegally constructing apartment blocks there. Gevorgian admitted that the company, which is part of Tsarukian’s Multi Group conglomerate, occupied a 2,000-square-meter plot of land and lacked other permits to build a residential complex in his community. But he argued that the Abovian municipality twice fined it and suspended the construction last year. Speaking to journalists at the construction site, Gevorgian said the municipality did not move to tear down the incomplete buildings because Multi Group formally asked it to legalize them in accordance with an Armenian law. He also stressed that Tsarukian’s company plans to build around 1,000 apartments in what would be the first affordable housing project implemented in Abovian since Soviet times. A spokesman for Armenia’s Office of the Prosecutor-General, Gor Abrahamian, insisted, however, that Gevorgian was obliged to take tougher measures against the real estate developer. Another law-enforcement agency, the Investigative Committee, formally indicted Gevorgian on Monday despite the fact that the Armenian police investigated the redevelopment project and cleared the mayor of any wrongdoing last year. The police inquiry was ordered by prosecutors in July 2019 one month after Gevorgian narrowly won reelection in a tightly contested mayoral vote. His main challenger was a candidate of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s Civil Contract party. Pashinian personally campaigned for the pro-government candidate.Tensions between the prime minister’s political team and Tsarukian’s BHK, which is Armenia’s largest parliamentary opposition force, ran high during the mayoral race. Gevorgian said he does not yet see political motives behind the charges leveled against him. “I think this is the result of a misunderstanding and everything will be sorted out,” said the Abovian mayor. Abovian has long been a political and economic stronghold of Tsarukian. Three Senior Members Quit Armenia’s Former Ruling Party • Sargis Harutyunyan Armenia - The ruling Republican Party of Armenia holds a congress in Yerevan, 26Nov2016. Three senior members of the former ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) have decided to leave it, citing disagreements with the HHK’s top leader, former President Serzh Sarkisian. One of them, Lernik Aleksanian, on Thursday accused Sarkisian of turning the party into a “trade union” for “criminal-oligarchic” elements and practices. “The party was invaded by many, many individuals who have nothing to do with the party’s ideology,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian. “They gained major positions within the party.” Aleksanian is a former parliamentarian, while the two other dissenters, Razmik Martirosian and Firdus Zakarian, used to hold senior government posts. All three men have been members of the HHK’s decision-making Council. In Aleksanian’s words, they terminated their membership in the HHK on January 13 after trying unsuccessfully to trigger an internal debate on “mistakes” committed by the party. Sarkisian and his inner circle systematically obstructed such a debate despite acknowledging those mistakes, claimed Aleksanian. He said they have specifically delayed the holding of what would be the first party congress since the 2018 “Velvet Revolution” that toppled Sarkisian. Armenia - Parliament deputy Lernik Aleksanian speaks to RFE/RL in Yerevan, 23Feb2017. “Good riddance,” HHK spokesman Eduard Sharmazanov said when asked to comment on the resignations and Aleksanian’s remarks. He refused to comment further. Sarkisian provoked the revolution nearly two years ago with his attempt to extend his decade-long rule after transforming Armenia into a parliamentary republic. Massive street protests across the country that broke out in April 2018 were fuelled by widespread popular disaffection with government corruption and cronyism. Sarkisian as well as some of his relatives and associates were prosecuted on corruption charges after the dramatic regime change. The ex-president went on trial last week. He rejects the accusations leveled against him as politically motivated. The HHK narrowly failed to clear the 5 percent vote threshold to enter the current Armenian parliament in snap general elections held in December 2018. It remains highly critical of Armenia’s current leadership and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian in particular. Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL Copyright (c) 2020 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc. 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.