The two opposition groups represented in the Armenian parliament reluctantly nominated Edgar Ghazarian, a maverick activist, late last month despite lacking votes to install him as the country’s next ombudsman.
Ghazarian as well as the ruling Civil Contract party’s candidate, Deputy Prosecutor-General Anahit Manasian, appeared before the parliament committee on human rights ahead of the ombudsman’s election expected next week. Opposition parliamentarians were conspicuously absent from the meeting, underscoring their apparent reservations about their candidate and Manasian’s almost certain election.
The meeting descended into chaos after Ghazarian lashed out at the government in his opening remarks. He urged Armenians to oust a “criminal regime whose tenure has been marred by widespread human rights abuses.”
Artur Hovannisian, the number two figure in Civil Contract’s parliamentary group, interrupted the speech to protest against that characterization.
Ghazarian further infuriated Hovannisian and other pro-government deputies when he described the 2018 “velvet revolution,” which brought Pashinian to power, as the root cause of Armenia’s current problems.
“The obvious decline of all democratic institutions and human rights in our country is the result of the Turkish-Azerbaijani revolution that happened in Armenia in 2018,” declared the radical oppositionist.
“We will cut the tongues and ears of anyone who will dare to call our people an Azerbaijani-Turkish group,” shouted Hovannisian.
“By describing the events of 2018 as a Turkish-Azerbaijani revolution I don’t mean the behavior of the Armenian people. I mean the beneficiaries of those events,” clarified Ghazarian.
The Civil Contract deputies attending the meeting doubled down on insults, taunts and ridicule directed at him. One of them, Narek Ghahramanian, noted mockingly that Ghazarian was beaten up by unknown assailants outside his home last October.
“Nobody is going to beat you up here,” Hovannisian told the opposition candidate. “But don’t provoke us. Come on, get out of here!”
Ghazarian served as a provincial governor and Armenia’s ambassador to Poland during former President Serzh Sarkisian’s rule. He became the chief of the Armenian Constitutional Court staff after Sarkisian was toppled in the 2018 “velvet revolution.” He lost that post in 2020.
Ghazarian, who is currently not affiliated with any party, set up a fringe opposition group last summer to campaign for Pashinian’s resignation and prosecution on treason charges. It rallied several hundred supporters in Yerevan in August.