“As to who is nominated in the position of candidate for the President of the National Assembly, whether it is Galust Sahakyan or any other one from the Republican Party, we should not expect any change in the operations of the legislature. There were very clear signals about it during the nomination of various speakers until now and now. Basically, this Parliament has one mission – be the punch of laws of this government,” said the member of the Heritage party Stepan Safaryan, referring to the turmoil created in the Parliament around the position for the President of the National Assembly and the RPA candidate Galust Sahakyan, noting that there have been occasions still in previous parliaments to criticize the policy of presidents of the National Assembly being elected by the ruling party. “Being one team does not mean being attached to each other,” says Mr. Safaryan. He does not welcome the behavior of opposition and non-governmental factions in the Parliament to boycott the election of the President of the National Assembly and avoid introducing one single candidate. “Previously, such opportunities, no matter we have realized that our candidate will not be accepted, we had always used to show our difference to the public and to talk about the actual role of the National Assembly and its functions, says Styopa Safaryan and adds, “I am just amazed at one thing: during the previous convocation of the Parliament, we had a total of six opposition MPs, who were displaying more resistance in similar situations than the four factions, plus the Rule of Law party that has withdrawn from the coalition”. Details in the video. Mr. Safaryan says that he was expecting nomination of one single candidate from non-governmental factions. “No matter he would not pass, however, these four parties together would try to improve their politics and their approach. The boycott for me, to be honest, is not the best option, and also, I do not understand the meaning of conceding the seat in the Accounting Committee. In other words, make the parliamentary majority facing a situation that they review the Committee staff in a way that the opposition representative will not be needed there,” says Mr. Safaryan and consider that this means conceding the position. Speaking of the Heritage faction leader Ruben Hakobyan’s decision on self-withdrawal, Mr. Safaryan said, “I do not know with what Ruben Hakobyan’s withdrawal is conditioned, maybe with this very bitter truth that the rest of the factions have no desire to support one single candidate. It does not matter for me what kind of agreements will be for the single candidate. This situation reminded me of the 2013 presidential election, when again decisions on non-participation or just a boycott were adopted and neither the opposition nor the society benefited,” says Mr. Safaryan and thinks that the mission of the opposition should be learning lessons from the past.” Otherwise, it turns out that the Quartet at the best can be raise only the issue of the prime minister, and no more. This means that they cannot have arrangements around the personality of the president of the National Assembly, not to speak about the courage to raise the president’s resignation.”
Hripsime HOVHANNISYAN
