Pashinian lost his temper and pledged to “go after” the opposition lawmakers on Wednesday after one of them accused him of turning a blind eye to media allegations of corruption among members of his entourage.
“You must be the first to go [to prison] and you will go,” he told another lawmaker during the Armenian government’s question-and-answer session in the National Assembly.
“Sit down, you moron,” he screamed in an ensuing shouting match with furious Hayastan parliamentarians.
The latter condemned Pashinian’s threats as illegal and challenged Prosecutor-General Anna Vardapetian to act on them when she presented an annual report to the parliament the following day. Vardapetian, who previously worked as a legal aide to Pashinian, responded by repeatedly saying that she does not make “political statements.”
Hayastan’s Artsvik Minasian denounced her stance and insisted that prosecutors must give a “legal evaluation” of Pashinian’s statements which he said amounted to a propaganda of “violence and intolerance.”
“You are now not an assistant to the prime minister but the prosecutor-general,” another lawmaker, Aghvan Vartanian, told Vardapetian. “I would advise you to forget about your previous position because the Criminal Code has articles about [officials’] full or partial failure to perform their duties.”
Anna Grigorian, the lawmaker whose question incensed Pashinian, also said that he must be accountable for his threats and insults. She did not rule out the possibility of filing a formal complaint with law-enforcement authorities.
“If we were a normal country, he would have to apologize … But we understand what country we live in. If the National Assembly speaker can spit [at an anti-government heckler] then [Pashinian] can easily use the vocabulary that I don't even want to repeat,” Grigorian told reporters.
Meanwhile, parliament speaker Alen Simonian said it is the opposition lawmakers who must apologize to Pashinian. He claimed that Wednesday’s incident was the result of their “insolent” behavior.
