During the third conference of Armenian parties, held on June 16-18 in Stepanakert, the RA Justice Minister Hrayr Tovmasyan in his speech on the role of political parties in the new circumstances conditioned by constitutional reforms in Armenian states noted, “The recent elections showed, even in terms of post-electoral processes, that this is a far softer system”. Noting particularly the lack of post-electoral developments as an argument of his statement, Hrayr Tovmasyan added, that he could not imagine such gathering in the Artsakh parliament hall after the last elections.
“Who could think it was possible to see the winning and losing powers gathered in one place a month after the elections?”, said Hrayr Tovmasyan, qualifying this event as the “first blossom” of the advantage of the parliamentary government system.
“Aravot”, however, noted that this was not so much a question of the form of government as the behavior of certain political forces and perhaps also a feature of discussion topics. We also reminded that after the resumption of military operations in Artsakh in 2016, even in the semi-presidential governmental system, the radical opposition Armenian National Congress temporarily set aside controversies with the government. And it is Artsakh that has gathered divergent powers in the third conference of Armenian parties and not the feature of the parliamentary governmental system.
The head of “Yelq” faction Nikol Pashinyan referred to Hrayr Tovmasyan’s remark about the lack of post-electoral operations, repeating his earlier expressed belief that in the NA elections people voted by vote-buying.
“The lack of post-election processes has nothing to do with the text of the Constitution. The citizen who has accepted bribes is not the citizen to go out the streets and fight against illegality”.
By the way, a ridiculous incident happened after this debate. Armenian National Movement board member Hovhannes Igityan suggested not to bring the theoretical Armenian conflicts to Artsakh, “The form of the government is not what matters, but that each body has its own distinct functions and implements them correctly”. He also noted that this full delimitation is impossible in Artsakh, referring to the president of Artsakh Parliament Ashot Ghulyan, who previously served in Executive Body, Artsakh Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In response to Hovhannes Igityan’s request, “Do not pay attention to Armenian examples, you are totally in different situation”, Artsakh Prime Minister Arayik Harutyunyan, who was presiding the session, said laughing, “We don’t”.
