Civil Contract expels another MP

Civil Contract has unanimously decided to expel MP Hakob Aslanyan, after Aslanyan announced that he was freezing cooperation with the faction for a month. At the same time, Aslanyan said that he did not consider the decision made earlier this month to expel MP Hovik Aghazaryan from the party over alleged leaks of confidential information to be ‘fair’.

The ruling Civil Contract party on Wednesday cited Aslanyan’s serious disciplinary violation and behaviour, which it said was highly incompatible with the party's values and political line, as the reason for the party’s ‘unanimous’ decision.

The faction made the decision in an extraordinary session held on the same day that Aslanyan announced he would freeze his cooperation with the faction for a month.

‘I declare with all responsibility that I did not find anything there for which I would be ashamed in my friend's place’, Aslanyan stated during an interview with Factor TV, noting that he came to that conclusion after familiarising himself with the contents of  Aghazaryan’s private chats.

Last week, the ruling Civil Contract party expelled MP Hovik Aghazaryan from the party ‘due to leaks of confidential information of state and party significance, as well as gross violations of public moral norms’.

The move came after Aghazaryan rejected Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's request to step down as MP.

The party did not elaborate further on what was meant by ‘gross violations of public moral norms’. It only provided vague information about the content of Aghazaryan’s private chats which were obtained from a phone seized from Aghazaryan by the investigators as part of a criminal case and subsequently disseminated amongst the ruling party.

Aslanyan noted that he had not seen the justification for all the points pushed by the party, and criticised the party’s move to have access to Aghasaryan’s personal correspondence.

He appealed to the head of the faction, asking to form a parliamentary group consisting of members of the faction ‘before which Hovik Aghazaryan will give explanations’.

‘If the members of the group do not manage to convince me to change my opinion, then my further cooperation with the Civil Contract faction becomes impossible’,  Aslanyan stated.

A few hours after his statement, Aslanyan posted a screenshot on Facebook of his personal correspondence with the Minister of High-Tech Industry Mkhitar Hayrapetyan, which showed a message sent by the Minister as a text for Aslanyan to publish as an apology for making his original statement about freezing cooperation with the faction.

Hayrapetyan’s message noted that Aslanyan’s original statement was ‘based on incorrect information’, adding that he considered it ‘wrong and emotional’.

‘I declare that I continue to be a full member of the Civil Contract party and faction and will act in accordance with the decisions of the party and faction leadership. At the same time, I agree that the Civil Contract party should be guided by high moral principles’, the Minister apparently wrote for Aslanyan to share himself.

Aslanyan reportedly later made several other posts sharing the same screenshot without including Mkhitaryan’s name before eventually deleting all of them.

A Ministry spokesperson released a statement on Wednesday evening noting that ‘Aslanyan consulted with the Minister [Hayrapetyan] today and asked him to help with the text of his statement. That's all’.

The spokesperson additionally stated that Aslanyan had previously been Hayrapetyan’s teacher, and that Aslanyan joined the party through Hayrapetyan in 2016.

‘I realised that my heart was warm, but now my brain is cold,’ Aslanyan told Factor TV in response to their question about why he had changed his mind.