“Zhamanak” condemns a TV channel controlled by Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) leader Gagik Tsarukian for airing a documentary that cast former President Robert Kocharian in highly positive light. The paper says the film made no mention of Kocharian’s role in the March 2008 killing of 8 opposition protesters in Yerevan. It says that the unprecedented post-election bloodshed outweighed double-digit economic growth registered during Kocharian’s presidency.
“Hraparak” also scoffs at the televised “ode” to Kocharian. “It’s not surprising that people remember the Kocharian era,” writes the paper. “How can they forget it? After all, Kocharian is the only president whose trial at the Hague court was demanded by tens of thousands of Armenian citizens in a collective petition sent to Holland.”
“Zhoghovurd” comments on Kocharian’s latest newspaper interview published on Friday. “The only new information that came out of this interview is that Kocharian loves reading books,” the paper notes with irony. “Who would have thought? As regards other issues, the former president repeated his boring reminders about how well we lived under his rule.” It goes on to ridicule Kocharian’s calls for breaking up economic monopolies and improving the broader business environment in Armenia.
“Haykakan Zhamanak,” meanwhile, notes that during his ongoing trip to Nagorno-Karabakh President Serzh Sarkisian visited a textile factory in Stepanakert whose Communist Party cell was headed by Kocharian in Soviet times. “At least officially, Serzh Sarkisian did not congratulate Kocharian on his [60th] birthday,” adds the paper. “He congratulated instead the prominent doctor Hayrapet Galstian on his birthday also marked on August 31.”
(Hovannes Movsisian)