Hraparak daily of Armenia writes as follows, in particular: The decision of the [opposition] Strong Armenia [(SA)] faction [in the new National Assembly (NA)] yesterday had become a reason for heated discussions in the ruling team. In the second half of the day, the faction leader Narek Karapetyan announced that they will not be in the parliament today, but will be at the court session of His Holiness [Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II] at 4 o'clock.

(...).

The thing is that today the election of SA representative Aram Vardevanyan for the position of the third deputy president of the NA will take place. When asked if the [respective] secret ballot is after 4 o'clock, will they not participate? Karapetyan responded: “There is a priority, our religious duty is a priority for each of our political processes.”

That statement by Narek Karapetyan yesterday has given rise to various conversations in the ruling team, with some suggesting to deliberately prolong the [NA] session so much that the vote [regarding Aram Vardevanyan] would coincide with the exact time when the “strong” ones would not be in parliament.

The problem is that the NA regulations do not allow for the voting hour to be moved, after completing the discussion of the issue, they are obligated to vote and only then move on to the next matters on the agenda.

The only hope is that yesterday at the CC [i.e. the ruling majority Civil Contract faction] closed-door session, the leadership expressed dissatisfaction with the abundance of speeches and the shallowness of the content, and the CC MPs were made to understand that if they have something to say, they should make speeches, and it is possible that many withdraw their speeches.