The events, which took place during May 31 city council elections originated serious speculations within the members of the ruling collation – the RPA and the Prosperous Armenia. These speculations and conflicts are at present more covert but will soon have a more public and open character. The evidence of that is the fact that since the last week the RPA has been intensively working to make the de facto independent businessmen-MPs of the National Assembly become RPA members (the thing is that the NA bylaw doesn’t anticipate that the NA independent MP may become a member of any faction and they de facto cannot become RPA members). For this purpose the NA MPs were handed in unsigned application forms, by which the latter express their wish to become RPA members and become consent with the standpoints of the RPA. In parallel with this the government conducts separate explanatory efforts with each of the businessmen MPs. If the MPs don’t sign this application they might start to have difficulties in their businesses. According to certain information one of the independent MPs, Karen Vardanyan (the son of the owner of Grand Holding Hrant Vardanyan) has already signed the application. Perhaps by the end of this quarterly of NA sessions the names of the rest of the MPs will be known. Most probably the businessmen MPs will not be able to avoid the process of “republicanization.” This becomes more truthful after the fact that the press officer of the RPA Edward Sharmazanov didn’t deny that such applications were handed to the MPs. As of the motives of this process it is most probably connected with the possibility of Robert Kocharyan’s return to Armenian politics. In more simple words, the RPA is afraid that the Prosperous Armenia may be able to recruit those MPs in its faction. Reminder: In February of the current year two independent MPs Rustam Gasparyan and Martun Grigoryan became members of the Prosperous Armenia party.
