The first meeting of the Council of Marmashen community in Shirak region, where ARF member Karen Arshakyan was elected as community leader, was boycotted: 6 out of 11 members of the newly elected council voted against the agenda, arguing it was not introduced to them beforehand. Then they asked for an hour, left and did not come back. By the way, the governor of Shirak Arthur Khachatryan, and Deputy Governor Seyran Petrosyan took part in the session.
Rumours are circulating in Shirak that Republican members are the organizers of the boycott and that, if the Republicans lose, they become opposition in this community. Let us remind that 4 candidates competed for the position of leader of the enlarged community, two of which are Republicans: former village head of Marmashen, Ashot Yeghoyan and former village head of Keti, Torgom Sahakyan. They were defeated by ARF member Karen Arshakyan. By the way, Republican Party officially supported the former head of Keti, Sahakyan Torgom.
We talked about this topic with Karen Arshakyan, to find out whether the rumours are true. “To be honest, I do not have the list of the Council members yet, I still do not know who is a Republican member, who is a member of “Prosperous Armenia”, who is non-party out of 6 members. They were elected from different communities. I cannot comment on rumours, but why would the Republican be opposition?”.
In response to our remark, that perhaps because they were competing with him and they lost, Karen Arshakyan replied: “Whether there are instigators or not will be clear later, but I hope that we will work together in a normal atmosphere, members of the community council have come to create a prosperous life with the help of the council, if they do not wish, that is another matter, but they were elected by the people. They were properly informed of the council meeting, but because I am the only employee at this point, we had stuck the agenda on the 18th evening, so that they could come and get acquainted with it, so whoever could they came and took it, whoever could not, they did not come. But let me repeat myself, I think we will normally work together”.
A new session was scheduled for November 24.
The Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) promised to present a clarification later.
Nune AREVSHATYAN
