Marukyan condemns government’s push to nationalize Electric Networks of Armenia

PanARMENIAN.Net - Edmon Marukyan, leader of the Bright Armenia party, has sharply criticized the government’s statements about potentially nationalizing the Electric Networks of Armenia (ENA), especially those directed at businessman Samvel Karapetyan. He stated on Facebook that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan doesn’t even have “a single competent lawyer who could explain to him that the insatiable desire to seize someone’s property will ultimately choke them.”

He added: “Let’s say they seize it—obviously, we’ll just return the property to its lawful owner.”

Marukyan alleged that the authorities first threatened Karapetyan by implying that if he continued to support the Armenian Apostolic Church, ENA would be taken from him. Karapetyan, in response, reportedly stated, “I don’t care about them or their ENA.”

“Seeing they can’t use ENA to threaten him into denying the Church, our heritage, and identity, the Prime Minister and others are manipulating his words—claiming that since he doesn’t care about a strategic asset, it should be nationalized. In other words, they intend to violate fundamental property rights and expropriate a person’s legal property,” Marukyan wrote.

He reiterated that any such action would be reversed: “If they do seize it, it’s clear we’ll return it to its rightful owner—and those who took it will be held accountable.”

Previously, Prime Minister Pashinyan said he had instructed government officials a month ago to assess and compensate damages inflicted by ENA on residents. The deadline for this task is June 21.

“I directly link the renewed government activity to this order. Ministers started working and sent a clear signal to ENA: calculate what damage you’ve caused to the people, to state and private institutions. I visited Lori—wherever I went, there was no power, or it kept cutting out. This is intolerable. And in this case, the church is just a smokescreen for ENA’s soon-to-be former owners. Their mismanagement has brought us to the brink of an energy crisis,” Pashinyan said.