One of the most hilarious events in the political sector was the issue of resignation of Yerevan’s mayor Gagik Beglaryan. Before the resignation after the incident with him people were discussing whether he would resign or no. However, in a statement released by the president’s spokesman it became clear that the mayor would resign. He officially approved that fact that two days before the resignation Gagik Beglaryan had beaten up a staffer of the protocol department of the president’s office Aram Kandayan. “The president has spoken about his attitude to such behavior. It means that such behavior cannot be tolerated and is not acceptable, and it is worse if it is done with state official,” said the spokesman of the president’s office. According to the law on local government in Yerevan, extraordinary elections for the mayor’s position shall be organized in the terms defined by the city council but no later than within one month. Thus, the mayor’s duties will be carried out by Taron Margaryan during this period. Following this incident also the RPA party board held an extraordinary session, which lasted till the midnight. According to our information, this session proceeded in a tense environment and the RPA leadership did not like the idea of seeing Taron Margaryan in the mayor’s position. The RPA board also discussed the names of possible candidates for the mayor’s position such as RPA faction member and director of ArmRusGazArd company Karen Karapetyan and Derenik Dumanyan. Notwithstanding all these changes this incident was a new quality in the political life of Armenia. With the resignation of the mayor Serzh Sargsyan shows that he has the political will to make people in this country follow the rule and not to make such things. In fact the president did not lose a political team member for the purpose of protecting a staffer as they have been trying to show but he shows that everything has limits. Of course there were people in their team that were saying that they sacrificed a team member or more people start to stab the one who first falls down but eventually people don’t care what they say. It is not excluded that the opposition may say that the cleptocratic power is in self-destruction and may try to help the suffered political “victims”. Notwithstanding all these opinions, this will be a good lesson for the others who think that they are the best and they can do everything. Anyway, we really hope that one day the authorities will be kind enough to protect not only the state officials but ordinary citizens too, most of which are subjected to violence on every day basis.
