The several dozen men spent about 30 minutes punching and kicking each other during a session of the National Assembly. Some of them were visibly injured as a result. Vahagn Aleksanian, a parliament vice-speaker, threw a chair at deputies representing the main opposition Strong Armenia party.
Ruben Rubinian, the parliament speaker also affiliated with Civil Contract, was in no rush to interrupt the session despite the ugly scenes.
“I will deliberately not interrupt the session so that everyone can see all of this,” he said. “The session will continue. You decide if there is going to be a brawl or not? Either disperse or take your seats.”
The brawl only intensified, leading Rubinian to eventually call a break and order security guards into the auditorium. It then continued in the parliament lobby.
“I thought they [opposition deputies] were at least physically strong. Turns out they aren't,” Pashinian scoffed in a social media post shortly afterwards.
He explicitly defended his loyalists at a news briefing held later in the day.
“Whether with a chair or something else, [their behavior] was proportionate and right,” said Pashinian.
The violence broke out during a speech by Civil Contract’s Taron Chakhoyan, who previously served as a deputy chief of the prime ministers staff and headed a government agency regarded by the Armenian opposition as one of Pashinian’s key propaganda mouthpieces. Chakhoyan launched a scathing attack on Narek Karapetian, a nephew of billionaire Samvel Karapetian leading Strong Armenia’s parliamentary group, in response to opposition allegations about government corruption.
“Mr. Karapetian, it’s not my fault that your entire extended family is involved in politics, including your uncle, your father and your cousin. The latter even tried to establish a ministry in our country. It’s not my fault that he wanted to create a ministry that would satisfy all women,” he said, provoking a furious reaction from Karapetian.
Representatives of Strong Armenia and the other parliamentary opposition force, the Hayastan bloc, accused the pro-government majority and Rubinian in particular of provoking the brawl.
“Ruben Rubinian bears full responsibility for what happened,” said Strong Armenia’s Marianna Ghahramanian. “He encouraged the instigator Taron Chakhoyan’s provocations and did not intervene in any way.”
“They came [to power] promising to fight against corruption, but now they themselves are mired in corruption from head to toe, which is why this is a very sensitive topic for them,” charged Anna Grigorian, Hayastan’s parliamentary leader.
Rubinian blamed Karapetian for the violence, saying that Chakhoyan “did not use a single offensive word in his speech.”
Brawls and scuffles on the parliament floor became a regular occurrence in Armenia after the 2018 “velvet revolution.” They had rarely happened in the past. Pashinian’s critics have for years accused him of encouraging pro-government lawmakers to physically assault oppositionists. The premier and his political allies deny that.