The bust-up followed fresh opposition allegations that members of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s political team are illegally enriching themselves, their families or cronies. Pashinian reacted furiously to such claims last week, threatening to imprison Hayastan parliamentarians.
“Your claims are not credible,” Civil Contract’s Arusyak Julhakian told her opposition colleagues during the latest session of the National Assembly.
Julhakian said they should look for corruption within their own ranks, pointing the finger at Levon Kocharian, a Hayastan deputy and son of former President Robert Kocharian, who is also the opposition bloc’s top leader. She read out a long list of assets belonging to Kocharian’s extended family which prosecutors have been trying to confiscate.
Levon Kocharian insisted that none of those assets had been acquired illegally. He went on to lambaste Pashinian, who lost his temper and called another Hayastan lawmaker a “moron” during a May 7 outburst on the parliament floor.
“He went to Moscow the next day,” said Kocharian Jr. “I wonder if he and you have watched the video [of the trip.] Now who is a moron?
“Or take [parliament speaker] Alen Simonian, who told my female colleague [on May 7] that he will throw her out of the auditorium. Let Alen Simonian know and keep in mind that when I throw him out of here it will be very painful because he sits high.”
One of Simonian’s pro-government deputies, Hakob Arshakian, responded by attacking and insulting Robert Kocharian.
“Let me tell you what people say about Robert Kocharian. They say ‘his father is a Turk,’ but we never say that from here,” Arshakian said in a speech interrupted by furious and offensive comments shouted by the ex-president’s son.
Moments later, Levon Kocharian and several other Civil Contract deputies charged towards each other, shouting more insults. Other lawmakers from both political camps intervened to prevent a violent clash between them.
Violence has not been uncommon in the Armenian parliament in recent years. It most recently broke out on April 22 after Hayastan said it has drafted legislation toughening punishment for anyone who denies or questions the 1915 Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey. Pashinian made controversial statements on the genocide issue earlier this year.