We have moved beyond the logic of having a 'Kebab Shop near Samvel': Torosyan

It is unacceptable for a democratic and parliamentary country like ours to have regulations that allow someone's name to be part of a political force or coalition's name. This was stated by the Minister of Labor and Social Affairs of Armenia, Arsen Torosyan, during a conversation with reporters.

It is worth noting that today the National Assembly adopted the draft amendments and supplements to the Constitutional Law on the Election Code in the second reading and in full. The amendment proposed by the MPs from ‘Civil Contract’ suggests that the names of parties or coalitions cannot contain personal names, names of state and local self-government bodies, or names that are similar to these to a degree that may cause confusion, or their cases.

In response to the comment that the authorities are afraid of the name 'Samvel Karapetyan' and are therefore pursuing such a change, Torosyan said, “I think we have long moved beyond the logic of having a 'Kebab Shop near Samvel', whether it is a political force or something else. It is unacceptable for a democratic and parliamentary country like ours to have a regulation that allows someone's name to appear in the name of a force or coalition, just as this is regulated in communities. We are merely filling in this gap. As for being afraid or not being afraid, I think it is very clear to our people who is afraid of what. They cannot even convey basic verbal messages to our people, hiding behind some artificial intelligences, text sent from different places, hiding behind texts that are clearly not originally written in Armenian. When you ask the same artificial intelligence if this text was originally written in Armenian or for instance in Russian, it says ‘it is obviously written in Russian’ because such phrases do not exist in Armenian. I think our colleagues do not leave an impression of being afraid at all, and those forces that call themselves strong are, in fact, the weakest forces in the world.