YEREVAN. – Zhoghovurd newspaper of Armenia writes: According to Zhoghovurd daily’s information, the process that has started on depriving the opposition MPs of their [parliamentary] mandate will not be completed. The [ruling majority] CC [i.e., the “Civil Contract” Faction in the National Assembly] is taking some steps just to scare them, knowing full well that it will not be able to deprive everyone of their mandates.

As is known, the Council of the National Assembly will discuss today the matter of petitioning to the Constitutional Court to terminate the [parliamentary] powers of 33 opposition MPs. The [respective] rationale states that the basis for depriving them of [their parliamentary] mandate is [their] dishonorable absence from at least half of the voting during the half-year.

The final decision on depriving parliamentarians of their mandates is, of course, the Constitutional Court's, the initiative is the CC's, however, according to Zhoghovurd daily’s information, as a result, [these opposition] MPs will not be deprived of their mandate. The result of the process will be that either as a result of consideration, the petition will not be sent to the Constitutional Court for some reason, or the court will deny the petition once it has been sent.

Let's remind that we are talking about depriving 33 [opposition] MPs of their mandate, whereas the names of 4 [such] MPs are missing. Although [MPs] Taguhi Tovmasyan and Ishkhan Zakaryan [also] have absences, their absences during these months were considered honorable. (...). Martun Grigoryan and Argishti Gevorgyan have just taken the [parliamentary] mandate, therefore they do not have an absence [from the voting in parliament].