NEXT PRIME MINISTER TIGRAN SARGSSIAN

[MosJan]

Minutes ago the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) held a special session on which Chairman Serzh Sargssian introduced his candidate Tigran S. Sargssian for the position of Armenian next Prime Minister. Out of 98 members of the Republican Party 90 were present and they all voted for Tigran Sargssian.

 

After introducing his candidate Serzh Sargssian asked for other candidatures. None of the Republican Party members had their candidates in spite of the fact that until 18.00 the same MPs were speaking against Tigran Sargssian in the National Assembly.

 

RPA press secretary Eduard Sharmazanov informed the journalists that yesterday Tigran Sargssian’s candidature was also supported at RPA executive council session.

[MosJan]

GALUST SAHAKYAN JUSTIFIES

 

“Yesterday the executive body of the Republican Party held a meeting discussion and paid greater attention on Tigran Sargsyan for the candidature of the prime minister’s position,” said the Republican representative Galust Sahakyan in his book presentation today.

 

According to him the discussions were detailed and the skills and experience of the CB president were taken into account. “Sooner there might be such situations in the country that he could treat them more easily. Besides the political team has larger economic projects. And in this regard the monopoly was given to him,” said G. Sahakyan.

 

Source: Panorama.am

[MosJan]

Central Bank Chief Set To Become New Armenian PM

 

By Astghik Bedevian

 

President-elect Serzh Sarkisian officially confirmed on Tuesday his intention to appoint the longtime chairman of the Armenian Central Bank (CBA) as the country’s new prime minister.

 

The candidacy of Tigran Sarkisian was presented to and promptly approved by the governing council of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK). A spokesman for the HHK, Eduard Sharmazanov, said all 90 council members attending the meeting voted for it.

 

“Tigran Sarkisian’s candidacy has been put forward,” the HHK’s deputy chairman, Razmik Zohrabian, told RFE/RL before the meeting. “I think the council will approve it.” “We will not reject the opinion of our party leader,” he said.

 

Tigran Sarkisian, 48, was tipped to succeed Serzh Sarkisian as prime minister even before the latter’s hotly disputed victory in the February 19 presidential election. The president-elect has made a point of making public appearances and presiding over government meetings together with the CBA chief in recent weeks. The two men are not related to each other.

 

Under the Armenian constitution, the prime minister is appointed by the president of the republic but must enjoy the backing of most members of the National Assembly. The HHK directly controls 65 of the 131 parliament seats and can count on the backing of a dozen other lawmakers, putting it in a position to form a government single-handedly.

 

Still, Serzh Sarkisian pledged last month to share power with three other pro-establishment parties amid opposition challenges against the legitimacy of his election win. They have not yet agreed on the composition of his coalition cabinet.

 

The HHK’s largest coalition partner, the Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) close to outgoing President Robert Kocharian, appears to be less than satisfied with Sarkisian’s choice of new prime minister. Naira Zohrabian, a senior BHK member, told RFE/RL that while the Republicans have the right to name the next Armenian premier, they should have picked someone else. “As for the rumors about that person being an economics genius, I’m sorry but I have serious reservations about those rumors,” she scoffed.

 

Tigran Sarkisian is known as a proponent of free-market policies championed by Western lending institutions. He had been a member of Armenia’s first post-Communist parliament elected in 1990 and headed the Armenian Bank Association before being appointed CBA chairman by Kocharian in 1998.

 

The CBA’s monetary policies have since drawn praise from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank but have repeatedly come under fire from opposition politicians and other government critics. In particular, they have blamed the Central Bank for recent years’ dramatic appreciation of the national currency, the dram. The bank, backed by the IMF, insists that the dram’s strengthening against the U.S. dollar and other major currencies was inevitable.

 

(Photolur photo)

[elle]

OSKANIAN IS QUITTING. WHO'S COMING NEXT?

 

It is said that the life is a sequence of coincidences and random events, and it can be hardly explained by logical methods. However, this point of view is inappropriate for politics, moreover for the foreign policy of a state.

 

Tomorrow, as it came to be known, Foreign Minister of the Republic of Armenia Vardan Oskanian is to resign from his office.

 

Tomorrow Mr. Oskanian is not to be the Foreign Minister any longer, but today he is still the person responsible for the recent failures of our foreign policy, and he shall ever remain one of the greatest contributors of our achievements in that field. In any case, irrespective of the skills and the experience of the Foreign Minister, the weak positions of the Armenian diplomacy are rooted elsewhere.

 

It has been a long time that Armenia has needed a strong foreign policy, able to make bold and important moves, which were avoided equally by the President and the Foreign Minister. On the other hand a number of urgent and important issues can make halt any candidate on the way to the office of the Foreign Minister.

 

Particularly, after the passage of the Azerbaijani resolution at the UN General Assembly, Armenia has a serious problem with positioning itself in international organizations. In connection with this also the Armenian Foreign Ministry decided to take defensive positions, after having taken no action to prevent such developments. Armenia claimed that the resolution is just a consultative document that has no legal power and rejoiced with the number of vote abstentions, instead of having dissuaded those who voted for the resolution.

 

There was always dissatisfaction with the functioning of Armenian diplomatic representations in foreign states. After March 1 events the Foreign Ministry also revealed having some trouble with its staff.

 

Some more examples can be brought from the Artsax process and particularly from the sphere of Armenian Foreign Ministry's relations with the mediating Minsk Group. The OSCE Minsk Group American Co-Chair Matthew Bryza, the husband of the head of Hudson Institute Eurasia Policy Department Zeyno Baran, is to be present to the inauguration ceremony of President-Elect Serge Sarkisian.

 

Taking into consideration only those circumstances, it is well enough to exclude the verbose, partial and senseless Co-Chairman from the Minsk Group. Taking into account also the fact that Bryza is trying to keep his image of a professional diplomat and pretend that his work is by no means associated with his private life at the same time when his wife is giving pro-Azerbaijani interviews and is warmly welcomed by Aliev, the silence of the Armenian Foreign Ministry is merely foolish, how complimentary our foreign policy be.

 

However, the era of complimentary policy shall possibly end with Oskanian's era. We should probable become more enterprising, but with who - that is another question. Considering the currently pending candidatures for the ministerial chair, no hope of success occurs, unless, probably, Ambassador to France Edward Nalbandian becomes the Foreign Minister. On the other hand Nalbandian's chanced are unfortunately rather modest.

 

 

[AVO]

Go for it elle, we need a fighter like you.

[elle]

Go for it elle, we need a fighter like you.

 

 

 

 

I'm a fighter inside, but feminine outside!

 

 

Ok lav es moment@ arden tuftetsi iskapes!

 

[Z'areh]

http://www.armenialiberty.org/images/photo/Tigran-S20.jpg

 

 

 

Shouldn't the PM designate have shaved for this occasion?

 

 

 

 

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