ArmInfo. The fate of the 8 deputies who received the mandate from Tsarukyan, despite the will of its leader Gagik Tsarukyan, remains uncertain.
On the eve of the solemn ceremony of handing out the deputy mandates, six of these eight were absent. The ceremony was attended only by Artem Tsarukyan and Arthur Manukyan, the father of the last Abram Manukyan, as is known, reached an agreement with Gagik Tsarukyan on the future of his son, in exchange for acting against the other seven who took the mandate against the will of Tsarukyan.
2 of these eight "rebels" - Napoleon Azizyan and Vahan Karapetyan, after a "long conversation" with Gagik Tsarukyan, changed their positions dramatically, stating to the media that they were ready to give up their mandates if necessary, although before that both of them were extremely indignant at Tsarukyan's decision to submit a self-withdrawal statement and readiness to fight to the end. Harutyun Karagyozyan, who at the last minute decided to cancel his application for self-withdrawal, most likely will refuse the mandate, and already changed his mind in an hour, but it was already late, the Central Election Commission reserved his application for a mandate.
Noteworthy are the actions of the leader of the "Armenian National Congress" party Ararat Zurabyan, who also together with the rest wrote a statement of intention to annul the self-withdrawal document and decided to take the mandate. During the meeting of the CEC, in a private conversation with journalists, he also expressed extreme indignation at Tsarukyan's actions, saying that the statement of self-withdrawal was submitted without his knowledge, and when asked whether he would subsequently cooperate with Gagik Tsarukyan, he replied: "God forbid", and was baptized for the sake of reliability. Asked whether Tsarukyan's people tried to exert pressure on him, Zurabyan remarked: "Do I look like someone who can be pressured?" Nevertheless, for some good reasons, Zurabyan's position changed dramatically in one day. In one of the interviews, he suddenly sharply criticized those candidates from the bloc who also decided to take the mandate, saying that they had violated the agreement with Tsarukyan. Further, he assured that his decision to annul the application for self-withdrawal was allegedly agreed in advance with Gagik Tsarukyan. In this case, it remains unclear why during the CEC session Zurabyan in private conversations along with other candidates expressed dissatisfaction with Tsarukyan's actions, and why he disowned the possibility of subsequent cooperation with him in response to journalists' question.
In the bloc "Tsarukyan" there is yet no certainty as to the outcome of the current situation.
To note, on the eve of the solemn ceremony of presenting the mandates, there was no faction of the Yelk bloc, as well as many Parliamentarians from the RPA.