Hrant Bagratyan: Very few people in the Armenian Parliament are free

 There are very few free people in the Armenian Parliament, Hrant Bargaryan, former prime minister of Armenia, a member of Armenian National Congress Party Faction in the Parliament, said in a Facebook post.

"On 29 April, the President of the National Assembly was elected. I'd like to thank the parliamentarians who voted for my candidature. Congratulations to Galust Sahakyan on election as NA President. I'm happy to have managed to introduce a program of NA reforms (for the first time in the history of that structure)," Bagratyan writes. 

According to him, the opposition must be freer than the authorities. Only free people can win the incumbent authorities, but there are very few such people in the parliament today, Bagratyan writes.

To recall, on 29 April, the head of the RPA parliamentary faction, Galust Sahakyan, was elected a new speaker of the parliament by 101 votes "for" through a secret ballot procedure. A total of 106 members of the parliament took part in the voting, three of which voted for the self- nominated opposition candidate, Hrant Bagratyan  and two ballot were recognized invalid. The opposition Armenian National Congress, Heritage Party and ARFD did not take part in the voting. The majority of deputies from Orinats Yerkir party and Prosperous Armenia Party supported Galust Sahakyan's candidacy.