Education Minister Arayik Harutiunian on Thursday called for the resignation of the long-serving rector of Armenia’s largest university who is facing corruption allegations denied by him as politically motivated.
Aram Simonian, who has run Yerevan State University since 2006, came under pressure to resign following last spring’s “velvet revolution” that toppled the country’s previous government headed by Serzh Sarkisian. A member of Sarkisian’s Republican Party (HHK) since 1997, Simonian had long been accused by his detractors of suppressing student activism and placing YSU under a strong HHK influence.
The pressure on Simonian grew in December after the State Oversight Service subordinate to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian implicated the YSU administration in financial irregularities which it said had cost the state at least 800 million drams ($1.65 million). The 63-year-old rector angrily denied the allegations, linking them to his continuing membership in the former ruling party.
On Wednesday, the Armenian police claimed that an unnamed “managing official of the university” has embezzled YSU funds and engaged in other corrupt practices over the past decade. In particular, a police statement said that in 2015 a private firm remodeled the official’s apartment and separate house in return for being granted a 400 million-dram construction contract by the YSU administration.
The police did not formally charge anyone. Instead, they sent the case to another law-enforcement body for further investigation.
Speaking to journalists later on Wednesday, Simonian acknowledged that the police statement most probably referred to him. “I see political motives behind that,” he said.
Accordingly, Simonian rejected the “ridiculous” allegations, saying that they are part of the current government’s efforts to force him out of YSU. He said he will not step down before serving out his current term in office in 2020.
Meanwhile, Harutiunian made a case for Simonian’s resignation after a weekly cabinet meeting in Yerevan. The education minister said that the YSU head should go because he is widely “associated with many negative practices that have existed in YSU and the sphere of higher education in general.”
Harutiunian, who taught at YSU before being appointed to Pashinian’s government in May, went on to accuse Simonian of trying to “politicize” the corruption inquiries and “using many deans and scholars as a shield.”
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