YEREVAN. – The newly elected National Assembly (NA) of Armenia on Thursday is continuing its first sitting, which kicked off Monday. 

Over the past four days, the legislature has unanimously elected Ararat Mirzoyan as NA Speaker while Lena Nazaryan, Alen Simonyan, and Vahe Enfiajyan were elected deputy speakers.

The parliament on Friday resumed the debates on election of chairpersons of the NA standing committees.

As reported earlier, the new legislature of Armenia will have eleven standing committees, instead of nine. Eight of these committees will be headed by the majority “My Step” Faction, the “Prosperous Armenia” Faction will head two committees, and the “Bright Armenia” Faction—one.

There are two other matters on the agenda of this session: The approval of the government program; and debating on the bill with respect to making changes in the makeup of the government—and according to which, the number of ministries are planned to be reduced from seventeen down to twelve. The parliamentary debates on these two matters, however, will be held later when the new government will already be formed, and the bill on changing the government makeup will be finalized.