By Naira Bulghadarian
YEREVAN (Azatutyun) — The Armenian opposition accused Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on December 30 of continuing to crack down on dissent ahead of next year’s parliamentary elections after eight more opposition members and supporters were arrested overnight.
They include two senior members of the opposition Hayrenik (Fatherland) party led by Artur Vanetsyan, a former head of Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS) who has stepped up his political activities recently.
The Anti-Corruption Committee (ACC) charged Khachik Galstyan and Aram Kocharyan with trying to buy votes in last month’s local election held in a district just west of Yerevan comprising the town of Vagharshapat and 17 nearby villages. The law-enforcement agency did not shed light on the accusations strongly denied by lawyers representing the two men. Nor did it name the six other arrested suspects.
The ACC petitioned a court in Yerevan to allow it to hold Galstyan and Kocharyan in pretrial detention. A court hearing on the request was still ongoing as of Tuesday evening.
Galstyan managed Hayrenik’s election campaign while Kocharyan was second on the list of the party’s election candidates in Vagharshapat. The party fared poorly in the election narrowly won by Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party. Galstyan accused the Armenian government of vote buying, gerrymandering and other foul play in an interview with the Hraparak daily published one day before his arrest.
