Opposition MP defends history, slams ruling party rhetoric

PanARMENIAN.Net - Gegham Manukyan, a lawmaker from the opposition Armenia alliance, responded sharply in Parliament to Civil Contract MP Vahagn Aleksanyan’s claim that Dashnak-affiliated media once led campaigns against Vazgen Sargsyan.

Manukyan questioned: “Which media attacked Vazgen Sargsyan before October 27?” When Aleksanyan asserted it was the Dashnak press, Manukyan retorted: “Bang your head on the wall.”

He continued: “'Haykakan Zhamanak,' Nikol Pashinyan... Tigran Hakobyan was at least present at the time,” implying that those criticizing the past were not involved in it.

Addressing Tigran Hakobyan and peers he described as a generation that had “lost 30 years,” Manukyan declared his speech was directed at those still willing to defend the pillars of statehood: history, dignity, and memory.

“My speech is a guide for those ready to uphold the foundation of our statehood—history, dignity, memory. It’s a rebuttal to those who seek to falsify and erase Armenian memory. I speak in the name of the state and Homeland, countering the Pashinyan-era theses that threaten our national survival and statehood. The antidote to one-sided, anti-national logic is a strong and living Homeland rooted in memory,” he said.

Manukyan also criticized the current government’s ideological lines, mentioning the controversial divisions like Aragats vs. Ararat and Homeland vs. State. He claimed that distorted discourse around the Armenian Genocide was driven by Turkish and Azerbaijani pressures.

Earlier, Civil Contract MP Vahagn Aleksanyan accused opposition-aligned media of spreading hate speech, comparing current rhetoric to that before the October 27, 1999 attack on Vazgen Sargsyan and Karen Demirchyan.