VIDEO: We Will Discuss the Issue of Stripping Opposition Members of Their Mandates Soon – Alen Simonyan

The National Assembly will discuss the issue of stripping opposition members of their mandates soon, stated the Speaker of the National Assembly, Alen Simonyan, during a conversation with journalists.

“We will discuss this with the faction and also with the leadership to see whether it is worth going down that path or not, because the law provides for this possibility, and there are two opinions on this matter. There is an opinion that, one way or another, the opposition has already stripped themselves of their mandates. Frankly, I cannot imagine how our colleagues will return to the hall after setting such a high bar and falling below it. What is dead cannot be stripped of its mandate and killed again. Another opinion is that we should exhaust everything they have done to the end,” said Simonyan.

He noted that there are at least ten deputies whose absences are significantly beyond acceptable limits. Previously, there were eleven, but since the head of the “Honorary Right” faction, Arthur Vanetsyan, has resigned from his mandate, only ten deputies remain.

The Speaker did not exclude that opposition members might also be stripped of their positions as Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly and heads of committees.

According to Alen Simonyan, the opposition is occupied with a power struggle and is doing so overtly. “They are now interpreting and explaining why they should not be stripped of their mandates, abandoning everything else. From the very first day, this has been a power struggle—this is a mandate struggle for the Dashnaktsutyun and supporters of Robert Kocharian so that they can have immunity, so they can hit a police officer and say, ‘Wait a minute, I am a deputy,’ so they can commit impudence and enter the ministry building. Let them not think that such brazen behavior finds support among the citizens of Armenia,” he mentioned.

Simonyan remarked that the opposition still has much to learn from both Nikol Pashinyan and members of the “Civil Contract” faction, as well as from the people. “Now, I wish them a good rest in the political ‘graveyard,’ where the new political figure Ishkhan Saghatelyan, who said that the CP is considering how to sacrifice Nikol Pashinyan, did not notice how they were hit on the shoulder and told, ‘You are doing everything right,’ and he was taken and placed on the sacrificial altar,” added the Speaker of the National Assembly.