“Zhamanak” comments on a compromise agreement that was reached on Monday by the Armenian government and representatives of market traders protesting against recent changes in a law on the main tax paid by them. The paper says that the government essentially agreed to postpone the enforcement of those changes until February. It links the development to upcoming anti-government demonstrations in Yerevan planned by Armenia’s three main opposition parties. It also comes up with a conspiracy theory whereby Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamian wants to make sure that the traders stage bigger protests (presumably against President Serzh Sarkisian) next spring.
“Hraparak” says that members of the Armenian delegation at the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) are refusing to speak to journalists about their “disgraceful” failure to prevent the appointment of a pro-Azerbaijani PACE rapporteur on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The paper complaints that the head of the delegation, deputy speaker Hermine Naghdalian, is now visiting neighboring Georgia together with speaker Galust Sahakian and several other members of the National Assembly.
“What is interesting is that usually the chairpersons of the National Assembly pay visits abroad in cases where the National Assembly speaker is not part of their delegation and they have to replace him,” explains “Hraparak.” “However, both the chairman and vice-chairman of the National Assembly have gone to Georgia this time around. Everybody waited for Naghdalian’s return [from Strasbourg] to hear her explanations regarding the anti-Armenian developments at the PACE. She decided to extend that moment for several more days. She probably hopes that things [in Armenia] will calm down.”
(Hovannes Shoghikian)