Today Hmayak Hovhannisyan, the president of the Union of Political Scientists, made an interesting statement on the secret deal between the RPA and the PAP during a conversation with www.aravot.am, which, according to him, was on the Civilitas case and signature collecting for an extraordinary session.
Hmayak Hovhannisyan has revealed that the PAP has cut a deal with the government “if you freeze the case of Oskanian’s Civilitas, I will freeze the signature collecting for an extraordinary session.” In Hmayak Hovhannisyan’s words, “The thing is that there was a fast process against Civilitas and Vartan Oskanian, they summoned him to the National Security
Service every other day. By putting off, I should say, suspending the issue of convening an extraordinary session, the PAP achieved that Oskanian’s issue was also suspended, they fell silent. Now if it resumes in the fall, they give a renewed impetus to Oskanian’s case, then, unfortunately, the PAP has turned our valiant, young, talented doctor Officer Vahe Avetyan’s death into a certain card in the political struggle. The government wanted to take Vartan Oskanian off the list of possible options for the common candidate, if this case had been carried through, if the court had brought in a verdict, Oskanian would not have had a possibility to be nominated for the presidential election. On the one hand, the prosecutor’s office denied Oskanian’s application to stop proceedings, on the other hand, it has frozen the process, it has lulled it, given the fact that the PAP might add its signatures to those of the Armenian National Congress (ANC) and achieve the convening of an extraordinary session. If there had been an extraordinary session, the parliament would have been surrounded by vast masses of people and under such circumstances, establishing a committee would have become unavoidable. The explanation that ‘we will not sign any decision draft that is signed by the Heritage representatives’ doesn’t work, because the ANC and the PAP have the necessary 44 signatures, therefore, they could have done it without the Heritage party, there would have been no problem.” We inquired whether he meant that the explanation of Naira Zohrabyan, the secretary of the PAP parliamentary group, that a part of the PAP MPs were on vacation, that was why they hadn’t sign was just an excuse, according to him, Hmayak Hovhannisyan said, “In that struggle, that political, psychological struggle, it was clear as day that the investigation into the case of Oskanian’s Civilitas was frozen thanks to that and that the PAP suspended the establishment of a commission. Let’s wait and see what developments there will be in September. But it is clear that now the ANC has a task to heat up the society over the establishment of a commission, because the establishment of a commission can become a playground, on which the ANC will be able to spoil the relations between the RPA and the PAP at the threshold of the local elections once and for all. And the results of these elections can spoil those relations once and for all and offer an opportunity to destroy Gagik Tsarukyan, their goal is that.”
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After a few strong statements during the interview, Mr. Hovhannisyan said, “Listen, do you want me to go through what Vahe Avetyan has gone through. Do you understand that one doesn’t argue with oligarchs in our country?” Therefore, we asked to clarify whether he wasn’t afraid to go through what Vahe Avetyan had gone through, when he said that the PAP and the RPA had cut a deal, whether he wasn’t afraid that he brought closer the day of his arrest, since there were 3 criminal cases against him, he said, “You know what, if I have to betray the 20-year road I have travelled and I have always been very brave, I wasn’t afraid of Vano, when Vano was the Minister of Interior.”
When journalists would ask about tractors handed out by the PAP at the joint staff, Hmayak Hovhannisyan would go ballistic, would stand up for it, since he was on the PAP list. In response to our question whether he could answer whether he considered it as an election
bribe or not now, he said, “If a good thing is done for people, one should welcome it, regardless of what the reason for that is. People just have to comply with moral, Bible standards, in order to do such things unselfishly. They do it for benefit. If it is not possible to carry out a fair redistribution of wealth, at least, let the people gain, get tractors at the expense of us, politicians that should have been in the parliament, at the expense of our ruined lives.”
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
