Will the upcoming parliament include business?

Several leaders of political parties and coalitions talked to journalists about the upcoming elections to the National Assembly. Edmon Marukyan, the head of the Bright Armenia Party, referred to info shared in media about the involvement of two businessmen - Khachatur Sukiasyan and Gurgen Arsenyan - in the lists of the candidates to NA from the Civil Contract Party. He is sure that it is a violation of the promise made by the current government. The leader of the Bright Armenia Party excludes that businessmen may be included in their party’s list. 

Responding to this issue, Hrachya Hakobyan, a member of the "My Step" parliamentary faction, finds it difficult to say whether Khachatur Sukiasyan, (the founder of "Sil Concern" LLC and the member of the proportional list of the Civil Contract Pary), is a businessman or a politician. 

However, this is not the only case in today’s political life. It was announced, that Tigran Arzakantsyan, who has been doing business in Russia in recent years, has become more active in Armenia before the NA elections, as he sought a party to run in the snap parliamentary elections. His offer of cooperation with the "Heritage" party did not work out, so he stopped his focus on the Democratic Party of Armenia. Recently it became known that Arzakantsyan is in the first place in the electoral list of that party, Aram Sargsyan, the chairman of the party, is in the second in the list, Narine Dilbaryan who left the "Heritage" party is in the third place. 

Conservative parties in the alliance 

The "Hayastan" bloc which participates in the snap parliamentary elections made a  program of development of the country for the next five years. It will be presented to the public during the
upcoming campaign. “And, yes, we will talk about the guaranteed future, the vision of Armenia's development”, - said the representative of the ARF Supreme Body Ishkhan Saghatelyan. The leader of the bloc Robert Kocharyan stressed that if the government uses disproportionate administrative resources and tries to falsify the elections in various ways, there will be post-election processes with unpredictable consequences. 

Also, another alliance will appear that will take part in the upcoming elections.  Samvel Babayan, the former head of the Artsakh

State Security Council, shared information that he has to enter politics. He
clarified his decision with the urge to act as a restraining factor “with my political team, to balance and stabilize the extremist forces, to prevent them from making fatal mistakes, to force them to take into account the real agenda, the external dangers”. In his opinion now is the time for all those who are not indifferent, who realize the current serious challenges and are ready to act for the interest of the nation. “ I will run as a candidate for the Liberal [Azatakan] Party. We are aware of the challenges that Armenia faces, we know the ways to solve them”, said Samvel Babayan.

Several political parties announced their list of candidates for upcoming elections to the National Assembly

• Hayk Sukiasyan, deputy chairman of the Christian-Democratic Party, has been appointed as the head of the Shirinyan-Babajanyan Alliance of Democrats.
• The electoral list of the Republic [Hanrapetutyun] Party will be headed by Aram Sargsyan, Artak Zeynalyan, and Ani Khachatryan.
• Edmon Marukyan, the leader of the Bright Armenia Party, said that the list of their faction is still drafting and it cannot be published now. He also emphasized that there are no surprises for the members, they will use only internal resources of the faction.