Cablegate: First Parliament Session Postponed

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RR RUEHDBU RUEHLN RUEHVK RUEHYG
DE RUEHYE #0696 1501101
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R 301101Z MAY 07
FM AMEMBASSY YEREVAN
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 5683
INFO RUCNCIS/CIS COLLECTIVE
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RUEHNO/USMISSION USNATO 0364

UNCLAS YEREVAN 000696

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SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV KDEM AM
SUBJECT: FIRST PARLIAMENT SESSION POSTPONED

(U) Sensitive but unclassified. Please protect accordingly.

1. (SBU) Parliament staffers and political party sources tell us
that the scheduled May 31 inaugural session of the new National
Assembly has been postponed until June 7. It is expected that the
inaugural session will see the election of the new parliament
chairman (or speaker), two deputy chairmen, and nine committee
chairmen for the upcoming session. We understand that intensive
negotiations remain underway among the three parties expected to be
part of the new governing coalition: the Republican Party,
Prosperous Armenia, and the ARF-Dashnaktsutyun, necessitating the
delay.

2. (SBU) Armenian leaders are creatively interpreting the
Constitutional specification that the first session of the new
National Assembly must be held on the third Thursday following the
parliamentary election, seemingly in order to buy themselves an
extra week. We hear that their rationale is that the Constitutional
requirement really means three weeks from the official announcement
of results (which happened May 19) rather than three weeks from
Election Day.

3. (SBU) We have heard sharply divergent rumors about who will be
chairman of the new parliament, with some sources predicting
incumbent Tigran Torosian will remain in the job, while others
predict the influential Territorial Administration Minister Hovik
Abrahamian will take the helm. We also don't rule out a possible
dark horse, third candidate winning the slot. The fact that usually
well-informed sources tell us different things, suggests there may
still be hard bargaining going on behind the scenes.

GODFREY

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