Stay in Your Lane: Mikayel Melkumyan Exits Chamber After Heated Dispute

During today’s meeting of the National Assembly's Economic Issues Committee on January 13, tensions flared, resulting in Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) MP Mikayel Melkumyan withdrawing two of his proposed bills and exiting the chamber.

The incident began when Zovinar Vardanyan from the My Step Alliance addressed Melkumyan during the discussion of amendments to the Tax Code, saying, "This initiative will not lead to the registration of cleaning or babysitting services at home; on the contrary, it will result in cleaning service providers with, say, 30 employees becoming individual entrepreneurs to evade taxes."

In response, the BHK MP emphasized that trust is essential for domestic workers and that companies benefit from having consistent personnel. “To leave a person in your home, you need to have a trustworthy individual. It’s not as simple as calling a major company and asking, 'who will come to babysit my child?' And secondly, when inviting large organizations, costs are higher because of administrative expenditures added to the work,” he stated.

"Mr. Melkumyan, I did not receive an answer to my question," Vardanyan responded, which provoked Melkumyan. "I also did not understand the essence of your question; did you get that? There’s no need to argue. If you didn’t understand my answer, that’s your problem. Don’t ask your question, I don’t want to answer it. I don’t even need a consensus to exist," he replied.

Vardanyan retorted, "Since it’s my right to respond and not just to ask questions, I will say that if Mr. Melkumyan had a logical answer to my question, he would certainly supply it, and evading the question did not alleviate my doubts that there is risk involved here."

Melkumyan’s response was sharper: “I also believe that your inquiries are a thousand percent illogical. Stay in your lane and don’t say unnecessary things. I am now withdrawing that bill and do not want it to enter the agenda. Our opinions significantly differ from the approaches you are discussing. The laws and the content of the laws you are enacting are leading the country into a deep crisis. Continuing with the same approach shows that no one has any intention to advance this illogical policy. Keep doing it your way. Goodbye,” said Melkumyan as he exited the chamber.