Kathmandu. The meeting place of the Parliament of Armenia turned into a battlefield on Thursday. A tense situation was created inside the parliament building after the heated dispute between the MPs of the ruling and opposition parties turned into a mass fight.
MPs also threw chairs and punches and sticks at each other. In the incident, which happened while the Parliament was being broadcast live, some MPs were injured and an ambulance was called to control the situation.
The incident took place on Thursday in the parliament building in the capital, Yerevan. While the appointment of members of the Audit Chamber was being discussed in the Parliament, the controversy started after Taron Chakhoyan, MP of the ruling Civil Contract Party, accused the leader of the opposition Strong Armenia Party, Narek Karapetyan, of corruption.
Chakhoyan commented that people involved in corruption are preaching about corruption and fake news. He also satirized that the members of the opposition leader Karapetyan’s family are involved in politics.
In that sequence, he also raised the issue of Karapetyan’s cousin Sergis Karapetyan’s controversial statement on women’s sexual satisfaction. Opposition leader Karapetyan was angered when he commented that he had not yet apologized to the women for expressing that he would establish a separate “sex ministry” to satisfy the women who came to power.
Soon after the bickering started between the two parties, the MPs turned on each other. In the beginning, the dispute, which started with pushing and grabbing clothes, turned violent and reached the point of punching and kicking. Inside the parliament building, it was difficult to distinguish who was hitting whom when the parliamentarians were attacking each other.
During the incident, the scene of Deputy Speaker Vahagn Aleksanyan throwing a chair at the opposition MP was also made public. In Kutakut, blood flowed from the noses of some MPs and some had their clothes torn. An ambulance was called to the parliament building to treat the injured.
Speaker Ruben Rubinyan initially continued the live broadcast instead of adjourning the meeting. “I did not deliberately postpone the meeting so that everyone could see this situation,” he said. However, when the situation started to go out of control, the meeting was postponed and security personnel were called inside the parliament chamber.
The dispute that started inside the parliament building reached the corridor outside. Security personnel tried to separate the MPs from both sides, but the tension continued for some time.
After the incident, Speaker Rubinyan held opposition leader Karapetyan as the main responsible for the incident. He alleged that Karapetyan could not control his anger and tried to attack Chakhoyan first.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has also responded to the scandal in the parliament. He warned that if anyone raised his hands on the parliamentarians, he would be severely retaliated against.
“If someone raises his hand or tries to do violence to an MP, we will break his hand,” he said. This expression of the Prime Minister has made the incident more controversial.
Even before this, disputes between the ruling and the opposition MPs had arisen time and time again. Even in the beginning of October, there were accusations among MPs regarding misuse of public funds and bonuses given to MPs.