Yesterday the Heritage faction of the NA created a quite turmoil in the parliamentary (and not only) routine. The founder of the party Raffi Hovhannisian, by criticizing the recent statement of the government, suddenly found out that it doesn’t reflect the demands of the society and that the agenda of the parliament doesn’t stem from the interests of the society. “Unfortunately, the existing correlation of forces between the majority and the opposition doesn’t satisfy the governing party leaders, and they have set their sights on these few opposition seats. There is no need to rig another election. As the Holy Mass says … take it and eat it, this is your heritage,” Hovannisian said. Lawmakers representing the opposition Heritage party demonstratively walked out of Armenia’s parliament, accusing President Serzh Sargsyan of seeking to illegally prolong his rule. The secretary of the Heritage faction Stepan Safaryan didn’t exclude that they might make a decision to recall their mandates as MPs. In a statement issued later in the day, Heritage said its governing body will meet on March 6 to discuss the party’s “further strategy and tactics” in the parliament. According to Stepan Safaryan, a senior Heritage lawmaker, among the options under consideration will be a permanent boycott of parliament sessions and even a formal surrender of its six parliament mandates. In fact, nothing extraordinary took place. The Heritage is entering into a bargaining phase with the governmental coalition closer to parliamentary elections. It is hard to find any other explanation to the performance of Heritage of yesterday. If the Heritage conducted its policies based on the needs of the society they should have quitted their mandates much sooner when there was the political necessity for that. During the past three years there have been at least several momentums like that. The most actual grounds for giving up the mandates were after the events of March 1, 2008. But at that moment the Heritage didn’t feel the threat of being out from the “political map.” The Heritage is not the past Heritage anymore and it seems that this time the Heritage doesn’t seem to be included in the next parliament. And today by bringing up such an ultimatum the Heritage is once again trying to offer its services to the government closer to elections. By that it’s trying to play the role of the transit opposition by trying to eradicate the ballots of the actual opposition.
