Epress.am News from Armenia
There are MPs in the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnkatsutyun, or ARF-D) parliamentary faction who are wealthy but they’re not oligarchs, said ARF-D faction leader Vahan Hovhannisyan in an interview with Russian news agency Regnum on Monday. According to the latter, this refers specifically to Ashot Apoyan.
“Yes, he is a wealthy man. But an oligarch — in the Armenian sense of the word — is someone who flaunts his wealth and power, is always surrounded by bodyguards, travels by armored vehicle and only with an escort, behaving arrogantly in public places while his thick-headed escorts shoot in the air or in the direction of the public. None of the wealthiest members in our faction, including Ashot Apoyan, have been seen exhibiting such behavior — [Apoyan] behaves extremely well, is deeply religious, and a quiet family man. In other words, he does not fit into the framework of the concept of an ‘Armenian oligarch.’ He doesn’t apply to this class. He’s just a seriously successful person,” he said.
On the question of the absence of ARF-D MPs in parliamentary meetings, Hovhannisyan said there are members of their faction who are often absent due to real health problems; for example, in the case of Alvard Petrosyan.
“But I think that parliamentary work is not solely ensuring presence at meetings in the hall — or even the speeches. In the hall you can see a lot of deputies from other factions who are physically present but do nothing. As for MP Ashot Aopyan, his work outside of parliament is valuable: for example, he provides us with qualified experts and works with them to develop bills and proposals — somewhere in a quiet room. He’s just not a public person but he he brings many benefits. There are such MPs in all parliaments. Unfortunately, in Armenia, there are a lot of people who rarely go to meetings, which is why it becomes more obvious. But for some reason no one asks why, for example, [tycoon, Prosperous Armenia party leader] Gagik Tsarukyan is not in the hall — especially because he is head of the Prosperous Armenia faction. I’m not saying this to criticize, because this man resolves dozens of foreign policy issues — Ukraine, Belarus, Croatia. Apparently, you need to change the system of assessing participation in meetings,” he said.