Today at 10:00 a.m. the first session of the 4th National Assembly will be summoned. This is one of those exquisite historical days when we’ll have the chance to see all the MPs present. After that we won’t be able to see many of those. They show up only during the voting of “top important” drafts to just press the voting buttons and leave right after the voting. Yesterday evening the CEC had eventually handed out the mandates. The representative of the Supreme Body of the ARF Dashnaktsutyun, Armen Rustamyan, stated in the evening of June 6 that three parties, the ARF Dashnaktsutyun, the Prosperous Armenia Party, and the Republican Party signed two documents which mark the end of the formation of the government and the leadership of the National Assembly. The Republican Party and the Prosperous Armenia Party signed an agreement concerning the coalition, and the coalition signed a memorandum on collaboration with the ARF Dashnaktsutyun. In other words, the ARF did not become a member of the coalition but will name ministers and posts in the national Assembly. The ARF will name the ministers of education, science and agriculture. Armen Rustamyan said Levon Mkrtichyan and Davit Lokyan will probably remain in their posts. At the same time, they will remain members of Dashnaktsutyun; there is no mentioning of freezing their membership. In the National Assembly, the ARF Dashnaktsutyun will appoint the deputy speaker and the standing committees for external affairs and defense. Vahan Hovanisyan will be named deputy speaker, Armen Rustamyan will be named chair of the committee of external relations and the former deputy minister of defense, Arthur Aghabekyan, will be named chair of the committee of defense. Armen Rustamyan says the agreement is a new model of political agreement and stability, which creates a new culture, and which will produce results. “It is very important to be able to reach political agreement under any circumstances. And the ARF Dashnaktsutyun underlines the importance of it because political agreement finally leads to national agreement,” Rustamyan says. Nevertheless, some important issues remain to be agreed on. First of all, the presidential candidate of 2008. “There are at least two reasons I can point to. First, it is the problem of our independence and the independent political tactics. As you know, Dashnaktsutyun had said it was to name a candidate in the presidential election. And it was long discussed whether Dashnaktsutyun was trying to get dividends in the parliamentary election or to build its tactics on it. Wasn’t it propaganda? The RPA will have leadership in five of the nine committees, including the committee on education, science and culture, the committee on finance and crediting, the committee on state and legal issues (to be headed by ex-justice minister David Harutiunian), the committee on economic issues (headed by former environment minister Vartan Ayvazian) and the committee on health, environment protection and social issues. The Prosperous Armenia will lead the committees on human rights protection and public affairs and on European integration. And Dashnaktsutyun will lead the foreign relations and defense committees. Also today, President Robert Kocharian accepted the resignation of the government, instructing its current members to continue in office until the formation of the new cabinet. By another decree, he appointed Serge Sarkisian as Armenia’s prime minister. Under the coalition agreement between the RPA and the Prosperous Armenia and their cooperation deal with Dashnaktsutyun, the president will have the prerogative of naming and recalling the ministers of foreign affairs, justice and defense. Dashnaktsutyun will have the same rights in two ministries, including agriculture and education; Prosperous Armenia will have its ministers of health, urban development, youth and sport (a ministry separated from the former ministry of culture). The RPA will have its say in all the rest of the ministries.
P.S. by their proportional list the RPA will have 41 deputies, Prosperous Armenia – 18, ARF – 16, Heritage – 7, Legal State – 8 MPs.