Serzh Sargsyan Declares “War” on Gagik Tsarugyan
CivilNet.am in Armenia Reports: Serzh Sargsyan Declares
“War” on Gagik Tsarugyan
President Serzh Sargsyan issued a statement following a session of the executive body of the Republican Party on February 12, severely criticizing his one-time ally Gagik Tsarukyan of the Prosperous Armenia Party.
In his statement, Sargsyan said that their session was devoted entirely to domestic political issues, developments in the political field and subsequent steps that his party would be taking. He said that the Republican Party is a political institution and all of its activities, announcements and initiatives stem from political processes.
The president said that regardless of his party’s attempts to establish a healthy political culture, a lack of basic logic and sense of reality have often times distorted the political field and transformed it into a theater of the absurd.
Sargsyan made reference to Gagik Tsarukyan’s latest speech, where he had noted that radical changes were necessary to improve the dire socio-economic situation in the country and that the regime had failed in all spheres. The president said that as a matter of practice, the RPA always responds to public statements made by well known leaders of the country, however Tsarukyan’s speech was not discussed. He said, “This might bring forth some confusion, but the explanation is really quite simple - what is the purpose of discussing it? What should we discuss? Should we discuss what he said, or rather, should we discuss whether he understood what he was reading?”
The president went on at length about Gagik Tsarukyan’s intellectual capacity, making one derogatory remark after the other, stating that Tsarukyan, as a political actor, is an “evil for the country” and that Armenia did not exist to be made into a circus.
Near the end of what can only be described as a diatribe, Serzh Sargsyan said that the time had come to correct the errors of the past, quickly, clearly and see them through to their logical conclusion. He laid out four steps he will be immediately taking:
1. Today, with my order, Gagik Tsarukyan will no longer be a member of the National Security Council of the Republic of Armenia. The country’s highest security body is not a theater where one can come and go as one pleases.
2. Gagik Tsarukyan has participated in only four of the 145 parliamentary sessions of the National Assembly in 2013-2014. If he is so highly disregards those who voted for him and the role of the National Assembly -- we do not have that right; we are responsible for the rights of every single citizen of the Republic of Armenia. Our Members of Parliament, starting tomorrow, will take the necessary steps to end such an absurd situation.
3. Unverified accounts about billions of drams in unpaid taxes have been left up in the air for years; billions were stolen from senior citizens’ pensions and education for the youth and masked within the pretext of “philanthropy.” I urge that the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia, assign appropriate authorities to examine fully and in detail the reality of these accounts and present them openly to everyone.
4. There are also many unverified reports of criminal cases that have been left up in the air and which have been professionally concealed.Tomorrow, I am inviting a session of the National Security Council, where along with our law enforcement, appropriate discussions will take place on how to deal with such reports.
“In closing let me say that my statement is solely about Gagik Tsarukyan’s political or pseudo-political phenomenon. As a citizen and businessman of the Republic of Armenia, I don’t see any issue in connection with him, if, of course, all such reports about his issues with the law are thoroughly refuted.”
