Wednesday, February 7 2024 16:55

ArmInfo.Chair of the Standing Committee on Financial - Credit, Budgetary Affairs of the National  Assembly of Armenia Gevorg Papoyan does not see anything extraordinary in the fact that Speaker of Parliament Alen Simonyan did not take part in the ruling Civil Contract party's session, chaired by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, yesterday.

Earlier, dismissed Deputy Minister of Economy Ani Ispiryan, Ani  Gevorgyan, the wife of the brother of NA Speaker Alen Simonyan,  founder and head of SYNERGY Ashot Hovhannisyan, as well as company  employee Lili Mkryan were arrested in the case of obvious corruption  abuses in the Ministry of Economy. 

Later, as a preventive measure, house arrest was applied against Ani  Ispiryan, the rest of the defendants were taken into custody.  Yesterday, in parliament, head of the Civil Contract faction, Hayk  Konjoryan, told reporters that the Civil Contract would make a  petition to change the preventive measure against the detained  employees of the SYNERGY company.

"I don't see anything extraordinary in this. Those members of the  board who have much more important government affairs, as a rule, do  not take part in party meetings. Of course, there are cases when they  are also absent for personal reasons," Papoyan said. In this regard,  the parliamentarian calls not to look for hidden meanings where there  are none.

Despite the fact that yesterday it was reported that the Civil  Contract faction intends to submit a guarantee within the day for the  release of SYNERGY employees from arrest, Papoyan claims that he was  not informed whether the petition was submitted. At the same time, he  is confident that the required number of signatures were collected to  provide a guarantee.

There are rumors in the local media sources that there is a struggle  within the government ahead of the 2026 elections. Alen Simonyan,  Security Council Secretary Armen Grigoryan and several other  officials began to present themselves as Nikol Pashinyan's successor,  the first one is supported by Russia, the second on by the West. And  they took it so seriously that they started tearing each other apart.  Our sources in government report that Alen Simonyan has long tried to  belittle the role of Armen Grigoryan to Nikol Pashinyan, and the  latter, in turn, worked against Alen Simonyan, giving a tip that Alen  Simonyan's family was participating in tender processes as part of  the SYNERGY company. As a result, law enforcement agencies got on the  track.