The new speaker of the Armenian parliament will be elected today at 1:30 PM by the National Assembly of Armenia, by the closed ballot.
Members of the Armenian parliament will make a choice between the two candidates - the head of the RPA faction, Galust Sahakyan and the former prime minister of Armenia, self-nominated candidate Hrant Bagratyan.
To note. yesterday all the parliamentary forces except the RPA refused to take part in the work of the scrutiny commission. As a result the RPA did not manage to organize ballot. However, the RPA found the way out and made alterations to the law on formation of the scrutiny commission. As a result, the RPA, as a parliamentary majority, gained an opportunity to have 7 out of 13 members of the commission and to provide the needed quorum.
To note, the opposition ARFD, Heritage party and Orinats Yerkir Party said they will not take part in the ballot. As for the Prosperous Armenia Party, which has proclaimed itself neither the opposition nor power, but an "alternative" party, it has decided not to boycott the election and not to take part in them but to give an opportunity to its own deputies to decided themselves either to take part in the election or not. It is expected that just the deputies form the PAP together with the RPA will provide Sahakyan's victory.