Monday, January 22, 2017 Opposition Bloc Rejects Presidential Candidate Favored By Sarkisian . Ruzanna Stepanian Armenia - Edmon Marukian (L) and Nikol Pashinian, leaders of the opposition Yelk alliance, address supporters rallying in Yerevan, 19Jan2018. Lawmakers representing the opposition Yelk alliance said on Monday that they will vote against former Prime Minister Armen Sarkissian if he agrees to run for president as a candidate of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK). "We will talk to Armen Sarkissian but the Yelk faction [in the parliament] will vote against his candidacy," one of them, Ararat Mirzoyan, told reporters. The Armenian parliament is due to elect a new and less powerful president of the republic by March 10. President Serzh Sarkisian offered Sarkissian on Friday to become the ruling party's presidential candidate. Sarkissian, who currently serves as Armenia's ambassador to Britain, said he needs "some time" to decide whether to accept the offer. He said he will hold consultations with major political and civic groups before making the decision. It is not clear when those talks will get underway. The Armenpress news agency reported that Sarkissian flew back to London over the weekend and will return to Armenia by the end of this week. "I think that when it receives such a proposal the Yelk faction will definitely meet with the presidential candidate to hear [his views,] discuss some issues and even voice concerns," said Mirzoyan. "But I am almost certain that that meeting will not reflect on the Yelk vote." "After all, Armen Sarkissian is a Republican Party candidate and that is a quite telling fact in itself," he added. Yelk announced late last year its desire to nominate its own presidential candidate, Artak Zeynalian. But in order to formally do that, it needs the backing of at least 27 members of Armenia's 105-seat parliament. The bloc holds only nine seats in the National Assembly. It has tried in vain to get the second largest parliamentary force, the Tsarukian Bloc, to provide the remaining 18 signatures needed for putting Zeynalian's name on the ballot. Another Yelk deputy, Gevorg Gorgisian, challenged the ruling HHK to help register Zeynalian as a candidate, saying that would make the upcoming presidential vote competitive and more legitimate. "Otherwise it will be an election without an alternative, without a dialogue and without a debate, which will run counter to democracy" he said. The HHK's parliamentary leader, Vahram Baghdasarian, scoffed at the idea. "You won't find such a precedent in any country of the world," he told a news conference. Under the Armenian constitution, a presidential candidate has to be backed by a three-fourths and two-thirds majority of lawmakers in order to win in the first and second rounds of voting respectively. A simple majority of votes is enough to win the presidency in the third round. The HHK has such a majority. Nevertheless, President Sarkisian expressed hope on Friday that Armen Sarkissian will win outright in the first round. In that case, the former premier would need the backing of at least 79 members of the 105-seat parliament. The HHK and its junior coalition partner, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), control 65 seats between them. They will therefore need the backing of the Tsarukian Bloc which holds 31 seats. The bloc's leader, Gagik Tsarukian, has not ruled out the possibility of supporting an HHK presidential candidate. Fuel Prices In Armenia Rise Further . Anush Muradian Armenia -- A petrol station in Yerevan, 22Jan2018 The prices of gasoline and diesel fuel in Armenia have risen further despite President Serzh Sarkisian's calls for possible "drastic measures" against a handful of companies importing fuel. One liter of gasoline cost at least 440 drams (90 U.S. cents) at filling stations across Yerevan on Monday, up by 10 drams from the end of last week. The price stood at 390 drams per liter in early December. Fuel companies have raised it for three times since then. The most significant price rise followed the entry into force on January 1 of new legislation mandating higher excise duties on fuel, alcohol and tobacco. The prices of pressurized natural gas, used by most vehicles in the country, as well as some essential foodstuffs have also gone up in recent months, prompting strong criticism of the Armenian government from opposition politicians and many ordinary citizens. Sarkisian expressed concern over the price hikes at an emergency meeting with senior government and Central Bank officials held on January 10. He said the government should look into the situation in the domestic fuel market and decide whether it warrants "drastic measures" by the State Commission on the Protection of Economic Competition (SCPEC). The bulk of fuel is currently imported to Armenia by two companies, Flash and CPS. At least one of them is owned by individuals close to the ruling establishment. Both companies declined to comment on the latest price rises. An SCPEC official told RFE/RL's Armenian service (Azatutyun.am) that the anti-trust body will again "monitor" the fuel market to decide whether the importers have abused their dominant positions in the lucrative business. Echoing statements by Prime Minister Karen Karapetian, a leading member of the ruling Republican Party (HHK), Vahram Baghdasarian, insisted on Monday fuel prices in Armenia are still lower than in neighboring Georgia. "The current petrol price is congruent with the international market," he claimed. A senior member of the opposition Yelk alliance, meanwhile, decried the latest price hikes. "What excuses will they come up with now?" Gevorg Gorgisian said of the authorities. Opposition politicians have long held the authorities and President Sarkisian in particular responsible for the existence of de facto fuel monopolies. Government officials have denied, however, that any sector of the Armenian economy is monopolized. Babayan Appeals Against Guilty Verdict . Karlen Aslanian Armenia - Samvel Babayan (R), Nagorno-Karabakh's former military leader, stands trial in Yerevan, 20Nov2017. Samvel Babayan, a retired army general recently convicted of illegal arms acquisition and money laundering, insisted on his innocence as Armenia's Court of Appeals opened hearings in the high-profile case on Monday. A district court in Yerevan sentenced Babayan to six years in prisons in November at the end of a four-month trial that also involved six other defendants. Two of them were sentenced to three and two years' imprisonment, while the four others received suspended jail terms. Babayan was arrested in March 2017 after Armenia's National Security Service (NSS) claimed to have confiscated a surface-to-air rocket system smuggled to the country. The arrest came about two weeks before Armenia's last parliamentary elections. Babayan was unofficially affiliated with the ORO alliance led by former Defense Minister Seyran Ohanian and two other opposition politicians. ORO condemned the criminal case as politically motivated. Armenia - Former Defense Minister Seyran Ohanian (second from right) and other leaders of the ORO opposition bloc hold a campaign rally in Yerevan, 11Mar2017. Babayan has repeatedly denied prosecutors' claims that he promised to pay other defendants, notably his longtime associate Sanasar Gabrielian, $50,000 for the delivery of the shoulder-fired Igla rocket. Gabrielian, who received the three-year prison sentence, insisted during the trial that it was he who commissioned the confiscated Igla. He claimed that he wanted to donate the launcher along with its shoulder-fired rockets to Nagorno-Karabakh's army. Both defendants appealed against the guilty verdict handed down by the lower court. Speaking at the start of Court of Appeals hearings, Babayan accused a trial prosecutor of deliberately omitting key facts which he said prove his and Gabrielian's innocence. The court rejected his demand for the prosecutor, Aram Aramian, to be barred from the case. Gabrielian charged, meanwhile, that he and the once powerful general were jailed for their involvement in ORO's activities. Law-enforcement authorities deny any political motives behind the case. But they have still not explained why Babayan would seek to get hold of the rocket designed to shoot down planes and helicopters. Late last month, law-enforcement authorities in Georgia extradited to Armenia an Armenian man accused of providing the sophisticated weapon to Babayan. The 40-year-old Robert Aghvanian was detained in Tbilisi just days after Babayan's controversial arrest. Babayan, 52, led Karabakh's Armenian-backed army from 1993-1999 and was widely regarded as the unrecognized republic's most powerful man at that time. He was arrested in 2000 and subsequently sentenced to 14 years in prison for allegedly masterminding a botched attempt on the life of the then Karabakh president, Arkady Ghukasian. He was set free in 2004. Babayan criticized the current authorities in Yerevan and Stepanakert after returning to Armenia in May 2016 from Russia where he lived for five years in what appeared to be self-imposed exile. Armenian PM Courts Swiss Investors Switzerland - Armenian Prime Minister Karen Karapetian addresses Swiss businesspeople in Zurich, 22Jan2018. Prime Minister Karen Karapetian urged Swiss businesspeople to invest in Armenia when he visited Switzerland on Monday following a drastic increase in trade between the two countries recorded last year. Karapetian addressed them in Zurich at the start of his first trip to a European country in his capacity as prime minister. He will also attend the annual World Economic Forum that will get underway in the Swiss resort town of Davos on Tuesday. An Armenian government statement said he will hold "a number of bilateral and multilateral meetings" on the sidelines of the forum. It gave no details. "My message to you today is clear and straightforward," Karapetian declared at a dinner meeting in Zurich organized by the Swiss-Armenian Chamber of Commerce. "Come and do business in Armenia, come and invest in Armenia. It is a worthy place for investing and doing business." "We have undertaken significant reforms in every aspect of our country," he said in what was apparently his first-ever speech delivered in English. Karapetian touted his government's efforts to improve Armenia's investment climate and attract more foreign investment. He said that they are already producing concrete results, pointing to official statistics which shows that the Armenian economy grew by about 7 percent last year. The premier also cited Armenian government data indicating that Swiss-Armenian trade tripled in 2017. According to the National Statistical Service (NSS), it totaled almost $316 million in January-November 2017, making Switzerland Armenia's third largest trading partner after Russia and China. Significantly, Armenian exports to Switzerland accounted for three-quarters of that figure. They include watches and watch parts manufactured by plants belonging to Swish entrepreneurs of Armenian descent. It is not yet clear what exactly caused those exports to more than triple in the eleven-month period. Karapetian encouraged Swiss companies to invest in a wide range of Armenian sectors, including energy, mining, jewelry and agribusiness. He said that they would gain tariff-free access to Russia's market thanks to Armenia's membership in the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). He also called for Swiss investments in a free economic zone which was set up on Armenia's border with Iran last month. Press Review (Saturday, January 20) Political analyst Alexander Iskandarian tells "Haykakan Zhamanak" that the nomination of former Prime Minister Armen Sarkissian for the post of Armenia's president should go down well with most Armenians not least because he is widely regarded as an outsider. Iskandarian also says that the continuing uncertainty about who will be Armenia's prime minister after April 9 is natural. "If [the prime minister's] name is announced now that person will simply be `savaged' before April," he says. "They would start circulating compromising information and launch smear campaigns. Serzh Sarkisian will therefore keep up the suspense almost until the last minute." "Zhamanak" describes the choice of Armen Sarkissian as "yet another artificial life support for the authorities." "The nomination of Armen Sarkissian's candidacy suggests that Serzh Sarkisian has no real desire to reform the system and once again connects it to artificial life support," writes the paper. It argues that for the first time ever a president of Armenia has been "effectively appointed by one man." The paper is also confident that parliament deputies from the Tsarukian Bloc will also vote for Sarkissian despite its nominally opposition status and frequent criticism of the government's economic policies. "Aravot" carries an editorial on Friday's demonstration in Yerevan against recent price rises which was organized by the opposition Yelk alliance. "If hundreds of thousands of people are unhappy [with the government] why don't they take to the streets when a political group stages a protest against price hikes?" asks the paper. "The easiest thing to do is to accuse that political group, Yelk, of being not popular or sincere enough. But such accusations are usually made by the authorities or those oppositionists who are definitely less popular and, more importantly, less sincere than Yelk." The paper believes that Armenians' lack of civic consciousness is a more important reason for the relatively poor turnout at the Yelk rally. (Tatev Danielian) 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