“Zhoghovurd” responds positively to the formation of a new Armenian opposition alliance comprising the Hanrapetutyun (Republic), Civil Contract and Bright Armenia parties. “Note that this trio does not make its political plans contingent on the 16th congress of the Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) or the possible comeback of the former Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) leader Gagik Tsarukian or the shifting political mood and health condition of Ara Abrahamian, the chairman of the Union of Armenians of Russia,” comments the paper. “They just decided to form an alliance. Apparently the opposition has realized that it is impossible to single-handedly fight against the government’s administrative resources.”
“Zhamanak” also thinks that Armenian opposition parties cannot make a strong showing in the April 2017 parliamentary elections on their own. “In this sense, this development is commensurate with the logic and requirements of the existing political realities,” writes the paper. “At the same time, it is definitely not sufficient in terms of addressing public and national issues.” It says that the new opposition bloc should clarify where it stands on key issues and what concrete policy changes it supports.
“In any case, the establishment of the opposition alliance should be considered positive in the context of the government’s political monopoly and, what is more important, false opposition forces taking shape,” writes “168 Zham.” “Incidentally, one of the main missions of this bloc will be to fight against the false opposition through which the authorities will be striving to split the votes of the opposition-minded electorate.”
“Chorrord Ishkhanutyun” derides an Armenian army general, Kamo Kochunts, for saying on Monday that corruption within the Armenian military is not as serious as it is often presented by the media. Kochunts told reporters to visit his home and see that he is right. “So General Kochunts is proposing a very practical mechanism for exposing corrupt practices in the armed forces: visit the generals,” the paper says tartly. “If it turns out that they are rich, it will mean that there is corruption in the army, and if it turns out that they live like ordinary people, it will mean that everything is fine in the army. It’s a brilliant idea. And we naively thought that we should look into the plight of soldiers, not generals, in order to detect corruption.”
(Tigran Avetisian)
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