Republican MP Making His Employees Change Their Polling Locations, Oppositionist Claims

A great number of citizens have been reporting that ruling Republican Party MP Artak Sargsyan is making the employees of his SAS supermarkets chain change their registration address and re-register in the district where he intends to nominate his candidacy for the upcoming parliamentary elections, Nikol Pashinyan, a lawmaker with the opposition Armenian National Congress faction, announced at the National Assembly today when presenting his plan for creating an ad hoc committee which would look into the sources of income of Armenia’s high-ranking officials and their immediate relatives.

“The electoral and the political process in general is for us first of all a platform for discussing political content and mechanisms and not a process of collecting photocopies of Armenians’ passports. By the way, Mr. Artak Sargsyan, I’ve been receiving letters from citizens who report that you are forcing the employees of SAS supermarkets to re-register in your nomination district. I’m singling you out so that you are able today to explain [from the parliament floor] whether this information corresponds to the truth,” Pashinyan said.

Armenian citizens, the oppositionist went on, should have complete information on Armenia’s state property for the past 20 years; “The people should be given an answer to one question: how come a 25-year government has a budget of only 2.7 billion. Why is it that Armenia is, in fact, unable to meet its basic needs, while at the same time many high-ranking Armenian officials are swimming in wealth?”

Note, later on in an interview with reporters Artak Sargsyan, who will run in the 2017 parliamentary elections from Yerevan’s Arabkir administrative district, claimed that Pashinyan’s assertions regarding his employees were untrue.