Member of the Armenian National Movement (ANM) administration Hovhannes Igityan and National Assembly deputy and member of the United Labor Party (ULP) Grigor Ghonjeyan were supposed to debate on the dual citizenship law and domestic political issues. However, the debate didn’t go as planned because both had the same opinions regarding many issues.
Both Igityan and Ghonjeyan had the same opinions regarding the National Assembly’s first reading on the “Law on Dual Citizenship”.
The National Assembly United Labor faction voted against the bill which, according to G. Ghonjeyan, solves certain problems yet leaves others behind. First of all, the ULP feared that granting dual citizens the electoral right may lead to a situation where the fate or format of the Armenian authorities will be determined abroad. With that said, the ULP is only satisfied with the set limit that the elections must be held within the borders of Armenia. Moving on, H. Igityan looks at this differently; this means depriving Armenian citizens living abroad of the electoral right by pretending to solve the dual citizenship issue. The problem, according to Igityan, had to be solved by the Constitution. However, the Constitution only deals with the rights and responsibilities of Armenian citizens. By the same Constitution, dual citizens are citizens of Armenia and thus are granted the same rights and responsibilities as citizens of Armenia.
“In the future, any dual citizen may appeal to the Constitutional Court, present his Armenian passport and ask why he is deprived of constitutional rights,” says H. Igityan.
Igityan also pinpointed other issues. For example, more than 30 countries prohibit dual citizenship and another 20-30 countries, according to Igityan, simply neglect it, saying that if the person carries the passport of the given country, it doesn’t care if he has another passport; he still has certain responsibilities. According to ANM member Hovhannes Igityan, problems will also arise in Armenia’s political system. Based on Armenian legislation, there should not be any foreign citizens in the political party administration bodies. In that case, what are they going to do about dual citizens?
One of the questions worrying G. Ghonjeyan was which polls dual citizens will vote at. But this issue has already been solved. It was decided that dual citizens may only participate in the elections with the proportional electoral system and the ULP is satisfied with this solution. In that case, why did this political party vote against the bill? It turns out that the most unacceptable and most principal point stated in the bill proposed by the government was the formation of the Armenian authorities. G. Ghonjeyan informed that their party has a clear position: dual citizens can’t be elected president, National Assembly deputy, prime minister or simply a government official. Ghonjeyan did not agree with Dashnaktsutyun faction member Hrair Karapeyan when he said that the people speaking against dual citizenship really fear the increase in ARF resources.
“We are certain that the ones with the mandates must firmly stand on this land with their own two feet,” said Ghonjeyan, adding that dual citizens should not have serious pretensions of playing serious roles in Armenia. He also mentioned that the “Law on Dual Citizenship” should not be overestimated because, in any case, issues must be solved by interstate agreements, while this law is still at the moral level.
“Let them have passports if they want,” said Ghonjeyan.
H. Igityan recalled that the Constitution does not state that the law on “Dual Citizenship” was supposed to be approved quickly on the threshold of the upcoming elections.
“Did we have to approve that now? This leaves room for suspicions,” said H. Igityan.
Of course, there was also a reference made to the upcoming parliamentary elections. It turns out that H. Igityan suspects the political powers and activists of not being part of the opposition during the past 17 years. However, he did exclude ULP from the list, claiming that the ULP is a new political power. Perhaps he did that because G. Ghonjeyan was sitting next to him. In that sense, perhaps “Prosperous Armenia” is also out of the list of “suspects” because it was formed after ULP. But Igityan recalled the “Prosperous Armenia” party in a totally different context. He thinks that the political parties with an ideology will not fit in the current political field of Armenia because “in that case, your amount of money, administrative resources, obscenity are influential and you have the gang and bodyguards who don’t even know what it means to be a bodyguard”. According to H. Igityan, the “Prosperous Armenia” party represents the origin of this kind of situation. He informed that the ANM will participate in the elections alone. As for the ULP, as of Wednesday, the party is also planning to participate alone. Although, as Ghonjeyan mentioned, they still have a couple of days to think about the ways and mechanisms for participating in the elections.