If president gets tough, no official will remain in office

Tert.am asked several Armenian politicians to comment on the resignation of the Yerevan mayor and the firing of the justice minister.
Vahagn Hayotsyan, executive secretary of the opposition Armenian Pan-National Movement, said that no official in Armenia will remain in office if President Srzh Sargsyan gets tough.

"Even though such conduct is unacceptable, Gagik Beglaryan is not the only person who assaults people, it is not the first time he assaulted someone," he told Tert.am.

"The recent developments testify to some negative processes in government and stem from the government system currently existing in Armenia," a former foreign minister of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic, Arman Melikyan, said, adding that all kinds of problems in official circles are resolved through individual methods and approaches.

Artak Davtyan of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) underlined officials' moral conduct as a key element of their activities.
"Anything that has to do with the government and the moral conduct of an official should be out of doubt, and any official, including myself, should demonstrate a proper conduct," he said.

Prosperous Armenia party (PAP) refrained from comments.

"The spokesman of the president has commented on the incident, and there is the fact of the mayor's resignation. We take all that into consideration," MP Naira Zohrabyan of the PAP said.