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On January 11, the regular sitting of the RA NA Standing Committee on Defense and Security moderated by Andranik Kocharyan was held. The item of the election of the Deputy Chair of the Standing Committee was also on the agenda.

The Secretary of the NA Civil Contract Faction Artur Hovhannisyan made a statement, noting: “During the lasting time we are witness of a process, when the same person was nominated for 14 times in the post of the Deputy Chair of the Standing Committee on Defense and Security by the NA opposition factions.” It was noted that in all sittings the deputies of the Civil Contract Faction have presented all the substantiations, according to which the candidate presented by the opposition cannot correspond with the given post.

Artur Hovhannistyan recorded that at December 7, 2021 sitting it was stated that the Armenia Faction was not nominating candidate. In this case, according to the constitutional law the NA Rules of Procedure, the right to nominate a candidate in the given post passes to the faction having the biggest coefficient in the beginning of calculating the coefficients of the factions, here – the Civil Contract Faction.

The Secretary of the Faction informed that on December 14, 21 and 28, 2021, the Civil Contract Faction did not nominate a candidate for the Deputy Chair of the Committee and proposed their opposition colleagues to nominate a new candidate during the debates, and it did not take place.

“Despite this circumstance and fake claims voicing regularly by the opposition that the ruling Faction wishes to conquer the post of the Deputy Chair of the Committee, the Civil Contract Faction reaffirms that during this whole process has pursued exclusively a goal of providing the normal works, and as an evidence of the abovementioned, the Civil Contract has made a decision not to nominate a candidate in the post of the Deputy Chair of the Standing Committee, leaving it vacant,” Artur Hovhannisyan noted.

According to the Committee Chair Andranik Kocharyan, from now on the Committee will convene a sitting on this issue only when the Civil Contract Faction would nominate a candidate.