ArmInfo. "We all wear our costumes, and we don't intend to try on Serzh Sargsyan's suits on ourselves," Member of the National Assembly of Armenia Vahagn Hovakimyan said at a parliamentary meeting on April 18, speaking about the proposals of the " Bright Armenia" opposition faction on the draft of amendments to the Law on structure and activities of government.
To recall, yesterday the head of Bright Armenia faction Edmon Marukyan during the discussion on the amendments to that law mentioned in particular :"It is known that the current system of state administration is called" Serzh Sargsyan's suit. "This is a well-known fact. That is, Serzh Sargsyan's costume, a super- premier system. Now you have developed a draft by which you propose to do the following: remove two buttons from the costume and say: wear this suit, this is already a good suit, "he said, taking off his suit and pointing at the buttons, pointing particularly at the proposals to give the Police and the National Security Service the status of ministries.
Meanwhile, as Vahagn Hovakimyan stated today, there is no need for such comparisons. As for the status of the Police and the National Security Service, then the country's parliament with 2/3 of votes has the opportunity to make changes to the constitutional law "On the Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly", and thus, by solving the existing problem. This decision will allow both the head of the police and the head of the National Security Service to take part in questions and answers to the government. In turn, the RA Minister of Justice Artak Zeynalyan invited the Bright Armenia faction to submit a draft of their proposal in order to compare it with the government draft. "You say that the state apparatus is bloated, we say the same thing, but you offer 14 ministries, while we propose to leave 12. You don't have research results on the feasibility of your proposals. You say that we took Serzh Sargsyan's costume and cut off two buttons? But your proposals are based on ours; in fact, you took our costume, and cut off two buttons with it, "the head of the Ministry of Justice said.
Meanwhile, as Artak Zeynalyan continued, the government's proposals are reduced to optimizing the public administration system in order with few resources to achieve more tangible results. Nevertheless, as the minister stated, the opposition's proposals also have right to be applied, and can also lead to results. In particular, one of the proposals of the faction to abandon closed government meetings will be considered in the period between the first and second readings.
The discussion process itself caused resentment of the NA MP from the Prosperous Armenia faction Gevorg Petrosyan, who called to talk more about the draft law itself, and not about costumes, socks or shoes. "Let's talk about the government program, its structure, social and economic consequences of this policy, and not to make a show with costumes and mathematical calculations about how many deputies and from which faction they performed on the submitted draft law, "said the lawmaker.
Another MP from the Prosperous Armenia faction Mikael Melkumyan stated that with such a structure of the government and such a program it is impossible to carry out an economic revolution in the country. He stated that the faction would vote against the draft law.