One of those lawmakers, Hovik Aghazarian, was ousted from the ruling Civil Contract party late last year while the other, Taron Markarian, had served as mayor of Yerevan from 2011-2018. They will be indicted, but not arrested for now, in separate criminal cases opened by law-enforcement agencies.
Aghazarian was one of seven officials, including Armenia’s top judicial officer, whom Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian told to resign in text messages sent last November. He was the only one who defied the “request.”
In the following weeks, Aghazarian was repeatedly summoned for interrogations and had his personal communication controversially accessed by Pashinian and disclosed to other senior Civil Contract figures. The party expelled him from its ranks in December. Pashinian declared the following day that he must be prosecuted and stripped of his seat.
Aghazarian has remained defiant since then, setting up his own party and pledging to strive to unseat Pashinian.
In a petition sent to the parliament two weeks ago, Prosecutor-General Anna Vardapetian said investigators want to charge the 65-year-old lawmaker with two counts of bribery and influence peddling. Vardapetian claimed that a private developer paid him a $23,000 kickback in exchange for his pledge to help it receive a construction permit in Yerevan. Also, Aghazarian allegedly demanded in 2023 at least $200,000 from two other entrepreneurs who wanted to circumvent government regulations for the export of livestock from Armenia.
Aghazarian continued to deny the allegations during a two-day parliament debate that preceded Thursday’s vote. He said Pashinian engineered his prosecution in retaliation against his refusal to resign from the National Assembly.
Parliament deputies from the main opposition Hayastan alliance echoed those claims. They argued that both criminal cases against Aghazarian were opened nearly two years ago and that investigators moved to charge him only after he fell out with Pashinian.
Civil Contract’s parliamentary group practically unanimously agreed to lift its former member’s immunity from prosecution, even though some of them openly questioned the credibility of the charges brought against him.
Yerevan Mayor Taron Markarian speaks to reporters outside his headquarters, 16 May 2018.
Pro-government lawmakers voiced no such misgivings about the criminal case against Markarian, who is affiliated with the second parliamentary opposition force, Pativ Unem. The former Yerevan mayor and the other Pativ Unem deputies boycotted the parliament debate and the ensuing secret ballot in protest.
Markarian faces accusations of money laundering, abuse of power and illegal privatization of municipal land. They were first levelled against him four years ago. The case never reached court due to an apparent lack of evidence. Prosecutors slightly expanded it in order to indict the ex-mayor again.
“All of this is just another episode of the political persecution that has been going on against me for seven years,” Markarian said in a statement issued earlier this week.
Pativ Unem representatives have claimed that Pashinian ordered Markarian’s prosecution in a bid to deflect the public’s attention from grave challenges facing Armenia and to boost his flagging popularity ahead of key elections. Vardapetian, who previously worked as Pashinian’s legal adviser, denied on Thursday acting on the prime minister’s orders.
