"Zhoghovurd" daily writes:
"The administration of the Civil Contract Party gave a heavy political slap yesterday for the second time to the Speaker of the National Assembly, Alen Simonyan, this time rejecting him to become a candidate for the CP of the National Assembly.
Simonyan received the first impulse during the preparation of the party's pre-election list, when the person occupying the second position according to the country's Constitution was not even in the top ten of the party. That decision already suggested what attitude was formed towards him in the ruling team.
Yesterday, that attitude turned into a political decision. The majority of members of the KP board chose Ruben Rubinyan as the candidate for the president of the National Assembly by closed vote, rejecting Alen Simonyan. The latter received only 5 votes out of 20 people.
According to official sources of "Zhoghovurd" daily, after the meeting of the board, Alen Simonyan returned home in an obvious mood. The winning mood of his team has suddenly changed, and the atmosphere in the parliament has become sad and uncertain.
According to our information, in the evening conversations, Simonyan told his relatives that he was actually deceived. Before the nomination, he had met Nikol Pashinyan, received his consent to be nominated as a candidate, and was sure that this consent also meant a political guarantee of being elected. However, when the board members were informed in advance yesterday morning that the voting will be closed and not open, it became clear that Alen Simonyan is not the candidate preferred by the government.
As a result, Ruben Rubinyan, who lobbied remotely in favor of his candidacy from Strasbourg, became the CP candidate with a convincing advantage.
According to "Zhoghovurd" daily, this decision was not accidental. Dissatisfaction with Alen Simonyan has been accumulating within the CP for a long time. Within the party, he has been accused of clannish thinking and a similar management style, dividing his teammates into "own" and "outsiders" and working with many in a manner that was demeaning.
According to our sources, systematic work against Simonyan has been carried out for a long time also within the party, especially by Hayk Sargsyan. In that sense, the defeat of Alen Simonyan is evaluated not only as a victory of Ruben Rubinyan, but also as a political success of Hayk Sargsyan, Nairi Sargsyan and their father, Zareh Sargsyan.
At the same time, Alen Simonyan's teammates are already trying to publicize hypotheses that the position of the President of the Republic or the Mayor of Yerevan is being prepared for him. However, these scenarios have no political and legal basis, at least at the moment.
To remind, the President of the Republic Vahagn Khachaturyan was elected in 2022 and his term of office ends only in 2027. In addition, in order to be elected the President of the Republic, the support of at least three quarters of the total number of deputies of the National Assembly is necessary. The CP does not have such a majority in this parliament, even after stealing the votes of the PAP.
The same applies to the position of mayor of Yerevan. Tigran Avinyan was elected in October 2023, and the next elections are planned only in 2028. In other words, in the case of both positions, if Alen Simonyan has such ambitions, he will have to wait for many more years.
And will he take the parliamentary mandate or will he give it up, the ruling circles do not have a clear answer at the moment. However, they do not hide another assessment in the same framework. in the status of an ordinary member of parliament, Alen Simonyan is unlikely to feel comfortable in the same parliament, especially in the conditions when he will no longer have the levers accompanying the position of the Speaker of the National Assembly and the security regime he was used to in recent years. he traveled everywhere with bodyguards.
Details in today's issue of "Zhoghovurd" daily.
