Civil Contract at the Center of Another Scandal

The newspaper "Zhoghovurd" reports that the ruling "Civil Contract" party, which speaks about the financial transparency of political parties and media, is involved in yet another scandal.

According to "Zhoghovurd", an independent audit conclusion has been sent to the Anti-Corruption Committee revealing egregious financial violations. The ruling party has collected excessively high membership fees, rented party offices at below-market prices, and received gifts of office spaces from unknown donors, creating uncertainty about who provided the gifts, for what services, and for what actual purposes.

The audit firm TM Audit has concluded that the party, led by Nikol Pashinyan, who rejects corruption, has made cash payments amounting to 9 million 64 thousand drams. Here, too, rules have been violated, as according to the constitutional law on parties, all financial transactions must be conducted in a non-cash manner.

Additionally, the Civil Contract party received 16 million 300 thousand drams in support from legal entities, but it remains unclear who the anonymous donors are.

It has also been revealed that the party has received material donations in the form of land from two legal entities, yet it remains unclear who has given these gifts.

Furthermore, there is no information available about 525 donors—there are no records of who bestowed gifts upon the ruling team, or the reasons behind those gifts. This is not the end of the revelations: the party has received a donation of 4 million 992 thousand drams from one individual, while the annual limit for donations from a single person should be 2 million 500 thousand drams, indicating that the Civil Contract has also received donations exceeding the allowable limit.

It should be noted that following the falsified elections in the Civil Contract's governing body, these revelations mark the second major scandal surrounding the ruling party. Nikol Pashinyan and his team, who came to power promising to fight corruption, seem to be mired in it.

The Civil Contract faction is currently engaged in efforts to dismiss the sole opposition official, the Head of the NA Human Rights Protection Committee, Taguhi Tovmasyan.

For more details, refer to today’s issue of the newspaper.