Hovik Aghazaryan, a member of Armenia’s ruling Civil Contract parliamentary faction, told Hetq that the political opposition is being led by people who have, over the years, lived at the expense of others by stealing and robbing.

He said the opposition has as a constitutional right to protest if their actions do not impede the rights of others.

Aghazaryan said he regards the anti-government protests not as a struggle for Artsakh but as a “class struggle” pitting law-abiding citizens against those who got wealthy on the backs of others.

Aghazaryan, a former top ARF leader who was expelled from the party in 1998, said that the opposition is trying to regain political power and thus secure their ill-gotten gains.

He said that while many of the protesters have “sincere motives” for coming out onto the streets, they should not be swayed by manipulative statements of the opposition leaders who represent the former regimes of Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan.

Aghazaryan said the Pashinyan government is “in full control of the situation”, while the opposition is desperately attempting to mimic the actions of the Pashinyan-led movement that toppled Serzh Sargsyan in 2018.