Today the Republican Party of Armenia will hold its 13th summit in the sport and concert complex after Karen Demirchyan.
Before the summit the RPA held a sitting of the executive body and discussed the issue of the board members to be elected and other issues related to the summit. According to our information, the executive body will be enlarged and several members will join it. Currently the executive board of the RPA has 14 members – Serzh Sargsyan, Razmik Zohrabyan, Galust Sahakyan, Mushegh Lalayan, Gagik Beglaryan, Derenik Dumanyan, Ruben Tadevosyan, Karen Karapetyan, Hranush hakobyan, Davit Harutyunyan, Gagik Minasyan, Tigran Sargsyan and Harutyun Pambukyan. The latter will not be included in the board as he almost does not stay in Armenia and does not take part in the parliament’s sessions. It is not excluded that he may take part in the summit, even though recently he showed up in the parliament. According to certain sources of information, other members will stay in the board, including G. Beglaryan and K. Karapetyan. There have been publications in the media that the latter might resign from the RPA and join the PA. The spokesman of the RPA Edward Sharmazanov has refuted this information and informed that definitely he would be re-elected as a member of the board. We have already informed that besides the mentioned people the board of the RPA would also include the NA speaker Samvel Nikoyan, Yerevan’s mayor Taron Margaryan, minister of education and science Armen Ashotyan, E. Sharmazanov, RPA’s women’s board member Hermine Naghdalyan and the coordinator of the party’s youth Karen Avagyan. The RPA’s board will have more than two dozens of members. During the summit in 2009 the number of the board members was increased as well (from 12 to 14) and they included the Prime-Minister and the mayor of that time in the board.
Secretary of the RPA faction Gagik Melikyan says that the number of the board members is not limited and it is decided by the party. This composition of the board members will have a significant role in distributing positions after the elections, which means that those included in the board will not be ignored and will be given top positions. This means that Gagik Beglaryan and Karen Karapetyan, who lost their positions in the government, will be included in top government again. It is possible that Karapetyan will be nominated under the majoritarian system in a precinct in Tashir region, and Gagik Beglaryan will have a high rank position in the government and will be elected in the parliament due to the RPA’s list. In addition, being members of the board also means that they will be included in the top places of the party’s pre-election list, which means that they will be in the parliament notwithstanding whether they may have high rank positions or no. Due to this change Hermine Naghdalyan will be the first woman in the RPA’s list. Hovik Abrahamyan was re-approved as the head of the RPA’s pre-election campaign headquarter. Certainly during the summit Serzh Sargsyan will be elected president of the RPA’s board. The RPA has three deputy presidents – Razmik Zohrabyan, Galust Sahakyan and Mushegh Lalayan.
Following the board session we were informed by Galust Sahakyan that 14 parties were invited to take part in the summit, including representatives from PA and LS coalition powers, as well as parliamentary opposition power ARF party. Besides the ARF no other opposition parties were invited. The Heritage, ANC and Free Democrats parties were not invited. Galust Sahakyan said that there were too many invitees to participate and there was no place. However, the representatives of Heritage party have announced that before holding their summit one before that they had invited S. Sargsyan, T. Sargsyan and S. Nokyan, however they failed to show up. G. Sahakyan said that they did not know anything about that invitation. ANC leader Levon Ter-Petrosyan was not invited either. The Prime-Minister said during his recent visit to Gyumri that since 2008 they had a problem with building bridges with the opposition, but they had overcome that barrier. G. Sahakyan said that they had invited the ARF due to the fact that the mentioned power had been a part of their coalition for a long time. Instead of the mentioned people that were not invited the RPA invited Artashes Geghamyan from National Unity party, Vazgen Manukyan from NDU, Khosrov Harutyunyan from PDP, Haik Babukhanyan and Viktor Dallakyan. Rumors say that besides Vazgen Manukyan the other people mentioned above will be included in the RPA’s proportional pre-election list. From other countries they invited EDP’s deputy president Rumyana Zhelyeva and the first deputy of the Russian State Dum Yedianaya Rossia faction Artur Chilingarov.
According to Galust Sahakyan, the RPA did not discuss issues concerning the RPA’s proportional lists. This list will be discussed in the near future and the names of their candidates will be sent to the Central Electoral Commission shortly.
Following the summit there will be also a reception for the participants, which based on the previous experience will be pretty luxury event. Galust Sahakyan did not say how much money had been spent on it but mentioned that the party members had supported that event. For your information, in 2009 they spent several hundred thousand dollars for their reception. The reception was organized by Aries company, and the director of the company said that they had ordered 1000 pieces from each type of dish. In consideration of the inflation of the past years and more tense environment before the elections, it is not excluded that the RPA’s expense for the summit and reception may exceed half million dollars.