Gagik Tsarukyan can be stripped of deputy mandate already today - armtimes.com
Chairman of the Armenian Parliament Galust Sahakyan has allegedly applied to the Central Election Commission, asking the CEC to strip lawmaker Gagik Tsarukyan of his mandate, armtimes.com reports. Sahakyan submitted the relevant petition with the CEC this morning. This means the CEC can take a decision today to de jure deprive Mr Tsarukyan of his mandate. This is an unexpected development because everybody expected the issue to be put to a vote at the plenary session of the National Assembly – something stipulated by Article 99 of the NA Regulations. On February 12, Serzh Sargsyan told senior members of his ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) that Gagik Tsarukyan is ‘evil’ and must be immediately ousted from politics. He also said relevant bodies will study Tsarukyan’s frequent absences from the parliament sessions, noting that the BHK leader had attended only four of the 145 NA sessions in 2013 and 2014. We remind that Haykakan Zhamanak daily has a document showing that Gagik Tsarukyan’s absences from the previous fall session were considered to be excused absences. It turns out that Galust Sahakyan will have to annul his decision to consider Tsarukyan’s absences from NA sessions as excusable.
