Billionaire Samvel Karapetian proposed on Friday a run-off vote between his Strong Armenia alliance and the ruling Civil Contract party as he continued to reject the official results of the June 7 parliamentary elections.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said on Friday that Armenia’s three main opposition forces must win no seats in the new National Assembly and at least one of their leaders will go to jail if he wins Sunday’s parliamentary elections.
Armenian law-enforcement authorities did not arrest or charge anyone on Wednesday one day after supporters of two key opposition groups running in the June 7 parliamentary elections were physically assaulted by government loyalists in separate incidents caught on camera.
Following Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s latest outburst against Nagorno-Karabakh’s exiled ethnic Armenian leadership, an Armenian court has allowed authorities to seize the building of its permanent representation in Yerevan.
In a fresh statement circulated on Wednesday, Davit Ishkhanian, one of the eight former leaders of Nagorno-Karabakh jailed in Azerbaijan, claimed that Armenia’s leadership does not want Baku to free them.
Gagik Tsarukian, a wealthy businessman leading one of the three main opposition groups running in Armenia’s parliamentary elections, insisted on Tuesday that he remains undeterred by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s pledges to seize his business assets and properties.
Schoolchildren, their teachers and other public sector employees continue to attend Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s campaign rallies during work and school hours in what Armenian election observers see as abuse of power by the ruling Civil Contract party.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s political team played down on Thursday Armenia’s mounting tensions with Russia and the resulting risk of Russian sanctions that could cripple the Armenian economy.
Yet another former leader of Nagorno-Karabakh jailed in Azerbaijan has condemned his and the other Armenian prisoners’ trials and accused Azerbaijani authorities of continuing to violate their rights.
Armenia’s government appears to be reluctant to publicize before the June 7 parliamentary elections its draft of a new Armenian constitution demanded by Azerbaijan.
The chief of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s staff has initiated legal action aimed at ousting businessman and opposition leader Gagik Tsarukian as long-serving chairman of the National Olympic Committee of Armenia (HAOK).
Andranik Kocharian, the controversial chairman of the Armenian parliament committee on defense, on Monday insulted another journalist and seemed to claim that his son exempt from compulsory military service is more intelligent that the country’s soldiers.
Former President Serzh Sarkisian has said that his Republican Party (HHK) will encourage supporters to go to the polls and vote for other opposition groups following its decision not to run in the June 7 parliamentary elections.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian again pledged on Friday to try to enact the kind of constitutional change that Azerbaijan has set as a necessary condition for ending the conflict with Armenia.
Azerbaijan has advanced deeper into Armenia’s territory from some of the border areas seized by it after the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian opposition leader claimed on Wednesday.
A coalition of Western press freedom groups has for the first time included Armenia on its list of countries in wider Europe jailing journalists or other media figures.
Defense Minister Suren Papikian defended on Friday his decision to expel from Armenia’s armed forces all Armenian Apostolic Church chaplains remaining loyal to Catholicos Garegin II.
A government-appointed task force will not manage to draft within the next few months a new Armenian constitution demanded by Azerbaijan, one of its members said on Friday.
Ignoring strong opposition objections, the Armenian parliament hastily approved on Friday government-backed legislation that will make it easier for authorities to bar local groups from monitoring the country’s upcoming general elections.
An Armenian appeals court has declared illegal a recent search conducted in the home of an independent expert who concluded that billionaire Samvel Karapetian did not call for a violent regime change before being arrested in June.
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