Since last Monday MPs are trying to adopt a new law that regulates their work, which is called “parliamentary by-laws”, but they fail to adopt it all the time. Everyone pretends that they can’t work in a duly manner since the law does not define how they should come to the parliament, how they should approach the podium and speak.
However, this is not the main problem, but the fact that the government does not want the parliament to make the national TV company broadcast the parliamentary sessions, thus, as head of the “Business” faction, Mekhak Mkhitaryan, says, by broadcasting the sessions MPs have an opportunity to show their voters how active they are, how well they work and to appear to the public.
Currently there are two “by-laws” drafts under discussion in the parliament, one of which was proposed by all factions, and the other one – by the ULP faction. As for the government, it informed the MPs in March with the help of David Harutyunyan that it advocated the draft that was proposed jointly by all the factions (with two exceptions, one of which concerns broadcasting sessions on national TV). As for the one proposed by the ULP, they were even against bringing it up for discussion. Notwithstanding the fact that a lot of things have changed in the government and in the coalition since March and the “Rule of Law” was replaced with the ULP, the government didn’t even come to take part in the discussions proposed by the ULP.
As for the discussion on Friday, as MPs say ironically, it could be very helpful for those people that wanted to try their luck in the political field such as David Harutyunyan. First of all, as ULP secretary Grigor Khonjeyan says, he would know that the parliament is a very boring place and the MPs are not interesting people at all: people who have a lot to say but don’t have enough time to come to the parliament and say what they want to say. Answering to Khonjeyan’s note, Hmayak Hovhannisyan said that Weber said, “A politician should have a strong eye and passion”. In other words, they both think that if a politician really has a strong eye and passion, he could become a really good politician and that’s exactly what Hmayak Hovhannisyan is trying to do recently. When Hmayak Hovhannisyan went out we asked him why he needed a strong eye and passion to be a politician, to which he replied by referring to Webber, without even understanding what we meant, “The strong eye says a lot about the professional skills of a person, passion speaks about a person’s ability to be involved in people’s problems and work”. In order to get an answer to our question we tried to ask the question differently and asked him whether he had a passion and strong eye. “Only my voters and you can say that because you are following the political developments and processes. Political passion proves whether politicians have political charisma or not. When we say that politicians should have political passion we mean that they should have the charisma, something which the whole world knows”, said Hmayak Hovhannisyan and added that he didn’t want to mention the names of the people who he thought had two those two significant attributes. The only thing he said concerning that is that they were few of them.
This is the reason why Hmayak Hovhannisyan says that NA sessions should be broadcasted on the national TV company so that people can follow their activities and see who is really working for them. “We should broadcast the sessions by all means, and after that if the government thinks that it contradicts the principles of the constitution, it can apply to the Constitutional Court. As for the government, they’d better do their work”, said H. Hovhannisyan. Otherwise, as the MP says, the people have lost 95% of their rights and may lose the rest 5% as well. “They have done everything besides this one. No one has a right to estimate the work of MPs besides the voters. Rafik Petrosyan and Tigran Torosyan don’t have a right to estimate my work. It doesn’t concern anyone what I am doing, it is only my business, and accordingly they can’t estimate my work either. I am accountable only to my voters”, says Hmayak Hovhannisyan.
As for member of “Justice” faction Stepan Zakaryan, answering to a suggestion saying that the parliament may buy the right for broadcasting their sessions on national TV company said, “It worth mentioning that when people were speaking different point about the song of Andre the independent director of the company said to the minister of culture that they could go and organize a rally near their office (he means Alexan Harutyunyan). What is the parliament if the requirement is not imperative?” Anyhow, the representative of “Justice” recommended that head of the National Commission on TV and Radio, Grigor Amalyan, to entitle the press service of the parliament to broadcast its program on the National TV, as for the amount provided for that service, he recommended paying that money from the budget from the sums that the company would pay to the budget. Another representative of “Justice”, the head of the faction, Grigor Harutyunyan, talked about their approach and said that he was sure that the proposed changes were connected with the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections: “On the threshold of the previous elections, they closed “A1+” TV company, as for these elections, Alexan Harutyunyan has said that they would not give the three minutes to broadcast the program dedicated its broadcast to the parliament. He is the one that can make a decision, he is the one that spends money from his own pocket and is heading that company”, said Grigor Harutyunyan.
P.S. The other factions will present their approach during the next session.