ArmInfo. MP Arman Babajanyan left the Bright Armenia faction. "Bright Armenia'', in turn, ''respecting Babajanyan's adherence to principles, expresses the hope that he will be committed to the principle of withdrawing the mandate obtained from the Bright Armenia's proportional list''.
In his "farewell" statement, Babajanyan tried to explain the reasons for his decision. In this regard, Babajanyan wrote on his Facebook page: ''For the first six months after the revolution, the political field and the political life of Armenia were in a deformed, degraded situation, since, on the one hand, the executive power, which enjoyed people's trust, was operating, on the other, there was an illegitimate parliament. It seemed that this political incident would be resolved by the parliamentary elections of 2018, but these elections only nominally changed the political status quo, leaving the content of politics in the claws of inertia of the past.
The basis of the velvet revolution was, first of all, the struggle against the previous authoritarian system and, as a result, the victory of democracy, fundamental rights and freedoms. The extraordinary parliamentary elections of 2018, as I have already noted, solved this problem only nominally. In addition to the "My Step" bloc, Prosperous Armenia and Bright Armenia passed to parliament. However, the months following the elections showed that the new parliament is out of touch of the agenda, realities and challenges of the new Armenia. The institutional, systemic reason for the aforementioned and a number of other problems is the inadequate behavior of the ruling parliamentary faction, as well as the fact that today's political realities and challenges have not been taken into account. That is, the state with parliamentary governance system actually has an incompetent parliament, with all the consequences that are visible as well as more dangerous, invisible consequences.
The parliamentary forces were not able to maintain the political agenda and political discourse in parliament, as a result of which today there are extra-parliamentary political relations in which revanchism prevails.
Meanwhile, completely new political realities and conditions created after the revolution do not allow, make it impossible to carry out a political struggle in an authoritarian regime according to the rules and methods of the game of democratic power. We are eyewitnesses of precisely this reality: the current parliamentary forces act according to the same methodology that guided the past authoritarian authorities.
The inadequacy and inconsistency of the agenda of the velvet revolution is manifested not only in domestic life, but also in foreign policy. For more than a year and a half, the new Armenia has been pursuing a foreign policy inherited from the previous regime. Armenia, which has adopted democratic and universal values, must in a new way communicate with the world and appear before it in a new light. However, Nikol Pashinyan does not have any political support from the participants of the current political system in these matters. Incidentally, this is already a matter of the country's national security, which, unfortunately, is not even realized by our political forces.
Thus, a year and a half after the velvet revolution, we have a mismatch and disproportion of domestic and foreign policy with the agenda of the revolution, which is simply a threat to national security and threatens the velvet revolution in the first place.
One of the greatest achievements of the velvet revolution is the awakening of law-conscious citizens, as a result of which society has become a subject and at least indirectly affects the decision-making process. And even if the rating of power is reduced, then, relatively speaking, the rating of the revolution remains unchanged. The vast majority of Armenian society believes in revolution and its values, and the task of all of us should be to prevent the devaluation of this faith. The velvet revolution is not over yet, and all those who still believe in the value of the revolution can and must rally around the idea of ensuring its continuation. P.S. The above reasons and factors now make it impossible for me to continue to be in the Bright Armenia faction, so I made a difficult decision to leave the faction. In the near future I will also inform you whether I refuse the parliamentary mandate or continue my active political activity in the status of an independent MP".