(Saturday, November 24)
“Zhoghovurd” reacts to opposition leader Raffi Hovannisian’s statement about lingering differences Zharangutyun party and its two opposition allies, the Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) and the Armenian National Congress (HAK). The paper says this is a further indication that their campaign for “regime change” is unlikely to end in success. It also says that Zharangutyun’s continuing cooperation with the BHK and the HAK now looks all the more incomprehensible. It claims that the BHK is now trying to expand the circle of its allied political groups in an effort to reduce Zharangutyun’s and the HAK’s significance.
In that regard, “Chorrord Ishkhanutyun” says that the opposition trio should be very careful in courting other, smaller opposition groups to join their campaign. The paper says that HAK leader Levon Ter-Petrosian already committed a mistake when he let more than a dozen such groups join his 2007-2008 opposition movement.
“Aravot” notes that the opposition rhetoric in Armenia has not changed in the last two decades, with opposition leaders, including those who used to be in government, accusing the authorities of “plundering” the people and pledging to end government corruption. The paper says that they quickly forget these statements as soon as they get government posts.
“Hraparak” reports that Vahe Hakobian, the recently appointed head of Armenia’s State Committee on Water Resources, unexpectedly resigned on Friday. “This unexpected move is attributed to [Hakobian’s] differences with Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamian,” writes the paper. It says the discord deepened after the recent reappointment of Suren Khachatrian, the notorious governor of Armenia’s Syunik province, from which Hakobian and his influential father Maxim come.
“Haykakan Zhamanak” notes that Vahe Hakobian was appointed as Syunik governor in June last year after Khachatrian was sacked following a deadly shootout outside his villa in the regional town of Goris. “Hakobian was a parliament deputy at the time and had to give up his mandate in order to become governor,” says the paper. “Now he has neither a position nor a mandate. There has been no official explanation for his resignation. And he now avoids contact with journalists, having switched off his phone.”
“Zhamanak” carries a commentary on the first anniversary of Ukraine’s so-called “Euromaydan” movement that led to the downfall of the previous, pro-Russian government in Kiev. The pro-Western paper hails the movement as a “national-liberation struggle of the Ukrainians” and “the second stage of the break-up of the Soviet Union.”
(Heghine Buniatian)