Ruling Republicans to declare officially on Serzh Sargsyan’s presidential candidacy by year’s out

YEREVAN, October 12. /ARKA/. The ruling Republican party of Armenia will officially declare about the incumbent Serzh Sargsyan’s presidential candidacy on its extraordinary convention to be held by the end of this year.

Such decision was reached at the RPA executive meeting, party spokesman Eduard Sharmazanov told Novosti-Armenia agency. 

Sharmazanov also denied rumors around secret agreements between Prosperous Armenia party leader Gagik Tsarukyan and Serzh Sargsyan. 

“There are no any secret agreements. And there is nothing strange if they meet, as Gagik Tsarukyan is a member of Security Council, and the meetings happen in this format,” he noted.

Armenia’s Deputy Speaker Sharmazanov also highlighted that the position of Prosperous Armenia related to the presidential elections is “solely matter of this political force, and at appropriate time it will reveal its position.”

He also denied viewpoints stating that Prosperous Armenia members are facing political persecution. In reference to this he said the state power has chosen democratic development route.

Disputes between the two influential political parties, the ruling Republican, headed by President Serzh Sargsyan, and Prosperous Armenia, aroused before 2012 May parliamentary elections.

Immediately after the elections, Prosperous Armenia refused from signing a memorandum on governmental coalition. Through the new memorandum Republicans and Orinats Yerkir members confirmed their support to Serzh Sargsyan as a single candidate on the presidential elections.

The relations deteriorated even more last week after the National Assembly stripped Armenia’s former minister of foreign affairs, Prosperous Armenia member, Vartan Oskanian of immunity after a majority of his fellow lawmakers allowed his prosecution in a secret 

ballot boycotted by the parliamentary minority factions, including his Prosperous Armenia Party. 

On Monday Oskanian was summoned to the National Security Service (NSS) and was formally charged with one count of particularly large-scale theft and one count of money laundering. Oskanian was also asked to testify as a ‘defendant’ in the high-profile case, but he refused to do so invoking his constitutional right.

Oskanian argues that his prosecution had “political implications” saying the government’s goal is to “step up pressure” on him and his party.

Oskanian is charged by the National Security Service with misappropriating a $1.4-million donation that was made by U.S. philanthropist Jon Huntsman Sr. to his Yerevan-based Civilitas Foundation in late 2010.  -0-