Wednesday,
Armenian Opposition Mayors Resign Under Government Pressure
• Karine Simonian
Armenia - Mher Gevorgian, head of the Gyulagarak enlarged community of Lori
province, talks to RFE/RL in his office, April 30, 2020.
The heads of at least three rural communities in Armenia’s northern Lori
province supporting opposition groups have resigned, bowing to government
pressure exerted on them after last month’s parliamentary elections.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian pledged to wage “political vendettas” against
opposition-linked local officials across the country during the election
campaign. He claimed that they are forcing their subordinates to attend campaign
rallies held by his political opponents.
A top aide to Pashinian effectively demanded their resignation shortly after the
announcement of the official election results that gave victory to the ruling
Civil Contract party. Armenian media outlets reported in the following days that
several provincial governors are summoning pro-opposition village mayors and
pressuring them to step down.
Lori’s Governor Aram Khachatrian said on June 29 that the election outcome
amounted to a vote of no confidence in those mayors.
Arsen Titanian, the head of the village of Odzun supporting the opposition
Hayastan bloc, claimed on June 23 to have been beaten up by Khachatrian’s
subordinates inside the provincial administration building after telling the
governor that he will not resign.
Law-enforcement launched a criminal investigation but have still not arrested or
indicted anyone. Khachatrian denies ordering the alleged beating.
Hayastan was also openly backed during the parliamentary race by Mher Gevorgian,
the longtime mayor of Gyulagarak and several smaller Lori villages making up a
single community.
As recently as on June 29, Gevorgian insisted that he has no intention to quit.
Nevertheless, he tendered his resignation on Tuesday.
“I want to take some rest,” Gevorgian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on
Wednesday. “I have worked nonstop for 23 years.
He said at the same time that he will run in the local election which will have
to be held after his resignation. “My people love me and I love them,” he said.
“I will run and win.”
The long-serving heads of two other Lori villages, Hartagyugh and Saralanj, have
also stepped down in recent days. One of them claimed to have health problems
while the other said he wants to engage in entrepreneurial activity.
Armenia - Lori Governor Aram Khachatrian.
Governor Khachatrian denied any connection between the resignations and his
post-election statement. But he also reiterated that residents of the region
bordering Georgia will soon “feel on their skin the power of the steel mandate”
which he said the ruling party won in the recent general elections.
In a June 30 statement, the chairman of the Union of Communities of Armenia,
which represents the country’s elected local administrations, condemned
government attempts to get rid of dissident mayors as illegal and undemocratic.
Hayastan, which finished second in the June 20 elections, has also deplored the
government pressure.
Individuals linked to the opposition bloc headed by former President Robert
Kocharian have run many towns and villages in southeastern Syunik province. They
demanded Pashinian’s resignation shortly after Armenia’s defeat in the autumn
war with Azerbaijan.
Four Syunik mayors have been arrested this month on different charges rejected
by them as politically motivated.
Pro-Opposition Doctor Freed On Bail
• Marine Khachatrian
Armenia - Former President Robert Kocharian (R) greets Armen Charchian, director
of the Izmirlian Medical Center, during a rally in Yerevan, May 9, 2021.
A prominent Armenian surgeon affiliated with the main opposition Hayastan
alliance was released on bail on Wednesday one month after being arrested for
allegedly pressuring his subordinates to participate in the June 20
parliamentary elections.
Armen Charchian, who headed Yerevan’s Izmirlian Medical Center, was prosecuted
after a non-governmental organization publicized a leaked audio recording of his
pre-election meeting with hospital personnel.
Charchian, who ran for the parliament on the Hayastan ticket, told them that
they must vote in the snap elections or face “much tougher treatment” by the
hospital management. He was indicted under an article of the Criminal Code that
prohibits any coercion of voters.
Charchian rejected the accusations as baseless and politically motivated before
a Yerevan court allowed a law-enforcement agency on June 23 to arrest him
pending investigation. Hayastan’s leadership, the Armenian Apostolic Church,
which owns the hospital, as well as hundreds of medics have since demanded his
release.
The high-profile trial of the 61-year-old doctor began on Monday. A judge
presiding over the trial agreed to grant him bail. Charchian’s supporters
present in the courtroom greeted the decision with rapturous applause.
“Unfortunately, it took justice so long to be done,” one of Charchian’s lawyers,
Aram Vardevanian, told reporters. “The professor should have never been arrested
in the first place.”
Another lawyer, Erik Aleksanian, insisted that his client is a victim of
“political persecution” ordered by the government.
Aleksanian said earlier that the accusations are groundless because the leaked
audio contains only a short excerpt from Charchian’s comments made at the
meeting with the Izmirlian Medical Center staff. He said a longer recording
presented by the defense lawyers shows that the hospital chief made clear he
will not resort to “repression” against anyone refusing to go to the polls.
Charchian also denied any wrongdoing when he spoke to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service
shortly before his arrest. He said he only asked his staffers to vote on June 20
and did not threaten to fire anyone.
Prosecutors maintain, however, that his remarks amounted to election-related
pressure and coercion prohibited by Armenian law.
In the leaked audio, Charchian also stressed the fact that the Armenian
Apostolic Church is at currently loggerheads with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.
Charchian is one of Hayastan’s 29 election candidates elected to the Armenian
parliament. His lawyers said that he will take up his parliament seat despite
his ongoing trial.
If convicted, the surgeon will risk between four and seven years in prison.
Serzh Sarkisian’s Bloc To Also Take Up Parliament Seats
• Astghik Bedevian
Armenia - Former President Serzh Sarkissian and former National Security Service
Director Artur Vanetsian preside over the official establishment of an
opposition alliance comprising their political parties, May 15, 2021
Former President Serzh Sarkisian’s opposition alliance said on Wednesday that it
too will accept its seats in Armenia’s new parliament despite refusing to
recognize Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s victory in last month’s parliamentary
elections.
According to the official election results, the Pativ Unem (I Have the Honor)
bloc comprising Sarkisian’s Republican Party (HHK) and former National Security
Service Director Artur Vanetsian’s Fatherland party finished second in the June
20 polls with 5.2 percent of votes.
The bloc will control seven parliament seats despite failing to clear a 7
percent vote threshold to enter the 107-member National Assembly. It benefited
from a legal provision stipulating that at least three political groups must be
represented in the Armenian parliament.
Pashinian’s Civil Contract party won 71 parliament seats, with the remaining 29
seats to be held by the opposition Hayastan bloc led by another ex-president,
Robert Kocharian.
Both Pativ Unem and Hayastan rejected the official results as fraudulent,
demanding that Armenia’s Constitutional Court annul them. The court rejected
their appeals before Kocharian’s bloc announced on Tuesday that it will avoid a
permanent boycott of the parliament favored by some opposition supporters.
A Pativ Unem spokesman, Sos Hakobian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that
Sarkisian’s bloc will also take up its parliament seats.
The seats are to be given up to the top seven candidates on Pativ Unem’s
electoral list, including Vanetsian and former Yerevan Mayor Taron Markarian.
Hakobian said that none of them has decided to drop out so far.
Sarkisian, who ruled Armenia from 2008-2018, was not among Pativ Unem candidates
despite taking center stage in the bloc’s election campaign.
By contrast, Kocharian topped his alliance’s electoral list, aiming for the post
of prime minister. Still, he decided to cede his parliament seat to another
Hayastan candidate.
Both opposition blocs have pledged to stick to their uncompromising stances on
Pashinian’s administration blamed by them for Armenia’s defeat in last year’s
war in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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