Manukyan Cites Excerpts from Pashinyan's Speeches at Various Times

This year, I have decided to lighten my workload; while discussing the budget draft, I have used excerpts from the speeches of a staunch opposition member from previous years to prepare my remarks. This was stated by Gegham Manukyan, a member of the 'Hayastan' faction, during the parliamentary session discussing the budget draft.

He referenced speeches made by Nikol Pashinyan regarding the budget at different times:
'Budget discussion, November 14, 2012, National Assembly, at this podium. For the first time in history, the appropriations necessary for servicing external debt exceeded 400 million drams in the 2013 budget, and it is planned to allocate 418 million drams for this purpose. It was considered a disgrace in 2012, around 1 million dollars. For the 2025 budget, the allocation for servicing external debt is 1 billion dollars,' he noted.

According to the deputy, the government now claims that increasing external debt poses no threat, and that we can increase it.
'In 2015, Nikol Pashinyan, on November 4, there was a publication in 'Hraparak' that in Denmark, which has a population of 5.6 million and a budget of around 120 billion dollars, there are only 23 cars in the entire state system. Meanwhile, the sides discussing the 'yes' and 'no' of the constitutional changes are determining what kind of state Armenia should be, while significant players are visibly constructing this kind of sham republic in front of all our eyes,' Manukyan stated and added:

'What kind of naive man is Denmark's Parliament President? Couldn’t he have told his operational troops that they cannot say how many cars to purchase? For example, Alen Simonyan says, 'What do I have to do with it? Two SUVs follow my BMW.' The other day, the deputy chief of the National Security Service said, 'We decide which cars to buy.' Does any other official in Armenia have the right to tell the NSS not to purchase an expensive car? No, that cannot happen.'

Manukyan also recalled Pashinyan’s statements concerning speed cameras and presented statistics: 'In 2016, deaths from road traffic accidents in Armenia were 267; in 2023, the number of fatalities was 378. Speed cameras are present, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs prides itself on raising the quality of speed cameras, bringing in completely different speed cameras. The cameras are there, and the numbers are rising. It was once said that it was Sasha's, but oh well.'

The deputy also discussed the Ministry of Defense and the acquired military equipment. 'I talk so much, I fight with officials from the Ministry of Defense, military matters, arms sales require secrecy. Today, the Armenian Armed Forces have become a promotional platform for India’s military industry. Yesterday, all Armenian media wrote about some missile heading to Armenia, and for this reason, you keep saying there is a logistics problem. I say add a clause to the contract to keep it secret, but no, it’s important that a person sitting at home knows when the missile left India, I don’t know how it will get here, but he can say, 'That’s it,' he emphasized.

After Manukyan's remarks, deputies from the ruling Civil Contract party began to speak from their seats, prompting Parliamentary President Alen Simonyan to admonish them. 'A minute of silence, Mr. Papikyan, dear colleagues, my colleagues from the Civil Contract faction, one cannot speak from the seats. Mr. Manukyan gave a good political speech, and it is not allowed to disturb him, regardless of what he is saying. It is not permissible to interrupt,' Simonyan said.