Arman Babajanyan left the Bright Armenia faction - the party demands  a mandate from him

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".