From 1 to 10 February, 2020, the “Media Advocate” initiative followed online media reports on the President of the National Assembly Ararat Mirzoyan’s personality and activities. 35 leading Armenian news agencies have been monitored.
In the specified period, 525 articles were declared, 120 of which were negative, 5 were positive and 400 were neutral.
Numerous negative articles have been published on NA Speaker Ararat Mirzoyan.
The media covered the creation of a commission investigating the topic of “Kamaz” trucks donated to the municipality. According to media reports, a representative of the “My Step” alliance noted: “Hayk Marutyan had explained to Pashinyan that it could be a catastrophe, and we were instructed to cancel the issue of the commission. But Ararat Mirzoyan was categorically against, thinking that he would “spoil himself” if he backs down, and it was decided, as some sort of compensation, Hayk would personally visit Ararat and ask him not to do that. And so, it happened; The day before the voting, Hayk came to the National Assembly to ask for it personally.”
According to the press reports, Ararat Mirzoyan and Ruben Rubinyan met with the Ambassadors of the OSCE and European Countries. According to media reports, the meeting was held in a cold atmosphere, besides it was noted that the NA representatives had presented in detail the problems related to the Constitutional Court and tried to get a positive feedback from the ambassadors, but they failed. The ambassadors were neutral and did not express any positive opinion.
During the last ten days in the National Assembly the issue of constitutional amendments was discussed. NA Speaker Ararat Mirzoyan postponed the extraordinary session several times, displeasing Edmon Marukyan, the head of the “Bright Armenia” fraction. He noted that the goal of the ruling fraction is to overthrow the bill and put the “dismissal” of the President of the Constitutional Court and judges to a referendum. As the further developments showed, the issue was finally put to a referendum.
