RFE\/RL\u2019s Armenian service<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/span> (Azatutyun.am), Abrahamyan dismissed media speculation that he was forced to quit because he is regarded as a backer of former president Robert Kocharian\u2019s possible bid to return to power.<\/p>\nNews of the resignation emerged after Sargsyan chaired late on Tuesday yet another meeting of the governing body of his Republican Party (HHK). HHK spokesperson Eduard Sharmazanov said Abrahamyan accepted the president\u2019s offer to run the party\u2019s campaign for the May 2012 parliamentary elections and decided to step down as speaker as a result.<\/p>\n
Abrahamyan confirmed this. \u201cThe president proposed that I run the pre-election campaign of the Republican Party and I find that very important,\u201d he told RFE\/RL\u2019s Armenian service.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith this step I also want to demonstrate to fellow party members and some politicians that I\u2019m not clinging to my post,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince the president, the party and myself attach a great deal of importance to the pre-election campaign, I don\u2019t want to combine these two jobs and cast a shadow on the post of National Assembly chairman,\u201d added the speaker.<\/p>\n
Abrahamyan already worked as the HHK\u2019s and Sargsyan\u2019s campaign manager in the last national elections while being deputy prime minister and minister for local government.<\/p>\n
Abrahamyan announced his exit from the parliament leadership the day after the sacking of Alik Sargsyan, the chief of the Armenian police, and less than a week after the equally unexpected resignation of Yerevan Mayor Karen Karapetyan.<\/p>\n
Armenian commentators have suggested that these changes are part of Sargsyan\u2019s efforts to ward off a potential challenge to his rule from Kocharian. The latter gave in late September the strongest indication yet that he would like to return to active politics.<\/p>\n
Both Karapetyan and Alik Sargsyan have denied any political motives behind their departures, however.<\/p>\n
Abrahamyan likewise insisted that his resignation has \u201cnothing to do\u201d with Kocharian. \u201cSerzh Sargsyan has the closest rapport with Kocharian \u2026 I have never meddled and don\u2019t want to meddle in their relations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am with the current team and will stick with it to the end,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
National Assembly Chair Hovik Abrahamyan has insisted that his resignation has \u201cnothing to do\u201d with former president Robert Kocharian. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":138805,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[33914,65942,13287,13317,19754,34036,17366],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138913"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}