We’ve declared it before and we’ll declare it again — power and business can’t coalesce in Armenia. This is what head of the My Step parliamentary faction Lilit Makunts said during an April 29 press conference, talking about the statement by Citizen’s Decision Party on depriving head of the Prosperous Armenia faction of the National Assembly Gagik Tsarukyan of his parliamentary mandate.

“We can view the statement in the legal sense and in the political sense. In the legal sense, the evaluation is important for us, and we’ll wait for the evaluation of law-enforcement authorities. In the political sense, we’ve declared it before and we’ll declare it again — power and business can’t coalesce,” she said.

Makunts believes the Standing Committee on State and Legal Affairs of the National Assembly has to undertake a legislative initiative. When asked if Nikol Pashinyan didn’t legitimize Gagik Tsarukyan’s presence in the National Assembly when he declared that there are large owners in Armenia, not oligarchs, Lilit Makunts said the following: “If, in any stage, there is a legal evaluation according to which there is misuse of official position, and lawmakers also do business, appropriate actions must be taken.”