As expected, after the registration of deputies, Arthur Baghdasaryan presented his resignation. His party, Rule of Law, however, had already left the coalition. Afterwards, the heads of the parliamentary factions on defense, national security, social and health care issues, Rule of Law representative Mher Shahgeldyan and Gagik Mkheyan did just like their leader. Based on parliamentary regulations, if the speaker insists on his resignation within five days after its presentation, it is confirmed, otherwise-no. This period of five days ends on Saturday, May 27-a non-working day. In regard to this, vice speaker Tigran Torosyan said that Arthur Baghdasaryan will have to then approve his resignation on May 29. This legal flaw may give the speaker an opportunity to change his mind during this time slot because the legal regulations clearly define the following, “right after the period of five days ends”. Taking into account the suspicious political approach of Arthur Baghdasaryan, when he first says that he sees the future of Armenia with NATO, and then says that he has been always advocating close cooperation with Russia, we may not take all what he says very seriously. In other words, it is quite possible that he changes his mind on Saturday too, but the Rule of Law representatives say that it is impossible.
On the basis of the scenario of Baghdasaryan’s resignation, we may assume that he was frightened and it was this fright that made him resign. “The recent surveys show that over 70% of our population is scared. We are going to fight to overcome this fear and have an independent society. We think that democracy and independent society should be the basis of our state”, said Arthur Baghdasaryan. Yesterday, by overcoming his fright for a moment, Baghdasaryan said that during the past couple of years, many legal acts were brought up, which went against the interests of people. “During all discussions of the legal recommendations that were contradicting people’s interests, we have always tried to recommend our approach and do our best to correspond that with the interests of the people. There have been many such recommendations”, said Baghdasaryan. Later Baghdasaryan announced that fighting against corruption and clan economy should be the first priority in state policy. Taking advantage of his last opportunity to make a speech, he made a prediction saying that, “if the birth and death rates continue like this, there will be about 500 thousand people in Armenia in several years, of course, if some don’t leave for abroad in search of jobs”. “We can understand things that are done normally, but all that has been done is out of the norm and we can’t protect that from not happening”, said Baghdasaryan. In his speech Baghdasaryan tried to make people sure that he was not backed by the authorities to play a scenario, but that they really wanted to become an oppositional power. “We are going to strictly criticize all wrong things, and it doesn’t depend on who commits the error, we are going to criticize all of them”, threatened Baghdasaryan and shook his finger. But if the authorities and the opposition want to do something good for the country, they will stay with them. After this speech, when the parliamentary agenda had to be discussed, Arthur Baghdasaryan, Mher Shahgeldyan and Gagik Mkheyan left the parliament. After a while, the other Rule of Law MPs that hadn’t dropped their memberships left the parliament too.
Baghdasaryan’s announcements concerning the scary environment in our country made the opposition active. For instance, the NU party leader, Artashes Geghamyan recommended discussing the resignation of the speaker. Since the agenda and parliamentary regulations didn’t provide such discussions, the opposition used the time given to them for asking questions and spoke about the resignation of the speaker, but at that time Baghdasaryan was not in the hall any more. Yesterday Baghdasaryan’s resignation mostly made A. Geghamyan and Hmayak Hovhannisyan worry. “Mr. Baghdasaryan clearly said that many legal recommendations were brought up that were out of the interest of people and that they were against them. It is not a secret that these recommendations were not made by the Justice alliance or NU, but by the coalition. And I want to congratulate Tigran Surenich; you are so polite that after being criticized so much in being non-democratic you thanked A. Baghdasaryan”, said Artashes Geghamyan with irony. Geghamyan also criticized Baghdasaryan in not mentioning the names of Kocharyan and Serj Sargsyan in his criticisms. “He wants to say that he has been forgiven for all his errors committed during Kocharyan’s term”, said Geghamyan and warned Kocharyan, “you should be careful now; they are going to follow up on everything you do. Take into consideration that you are removing the secondary figure of the state, how can we even ask ourselves whether or not it is worth discussing his resignation when he expressed many critical thoughts and opinions? If it is right, he did a very good job, but if this is a game, it is enough already, people are tired of this already”. Later Hmayak Hovhannisyan continued and said that the fact that the speaker resigned directly without discussing it is a result of being frightened. “The elected leader doesn’t want to recommend discussing his confidence, but resigns directly, like a chief of a small communal office. And then he adds that recent surveys show that citizens are scared. The way he resigned also shows that he is scared. On the other hand, we have entered a very bad phase now and have to discuss these things, because the parliament is not for fragile women”, said H. Hovhannisyan and added, “they are blaming each other of committed errors and than thank each other. He says that over 70% of citizens are scared and you thank him, what is the meaning of this?” Yesterday vice speaker Tigran Torosyan didn’t have much luck in his effort to make deputies calm down because the discussion didn’t concern that resignation. As for the Rule of Law, the only one that tried to protect Arthur Baghdasaryan was Rule of Law member Hovhannes Margaryan, who went down to the hall from Baghdasaryan’s room after these critical announcements and criticized the opposition in not taking part in the parliamentary sessions at all during the discussions on those legal recommendations that were contradicting the interests of people. “They have found the way of scaring us and are making us dependent on them. We have our political approach and have talked about that clearly”, said H. Margaryan and added, “I don’t know why devils often speak about saints”.