Via EURASIANET.org [4/03/07]: The drive-by shooting of a senior member of Armenia’s ruling Republican Party is heightening concern about Armenia’s upcoming parliamentary elections. Many observers fear that the incident is somehow linked with the May 12 vote. Government investigators are still scrambling to identify a possible motive for the attack, however. Vardan Ghukasian, mayor of Armenia’s second largest city, Gyumri, and his staff came under gunfire late in the evening of April 2 while returning to Gyumri from a meeting of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia in Yerevan. At the gathering, party leaders made acting chairman and Defense Minister Serzh Sarkisian their choice to become prime minister, replacing Andranik Markarian, who died from a heart attack on March 25. The reaction of the blogosphere has been mostly neutral, quoting various news sources as in: Oneworld Multimedia here and here, Kornelij Glas, Armenia, Hyelog, Armenian Breaking News and others. Harmick at Blogrel offers a piece of “wishful thinking”, by suggesting, this.
I always like to talk about Armenia being safe and secure, and whilst I know this kind of thing “happens everywhere”, when we talk of Armenians being a close and warm nation – it seems politics is a game only for those who are as violent and unruly as each other. […] My solution? We all move to Glendale, re build somewhere that looks roughly like Armenia..(it’s already almost there!) .wait a few years, let all the oligarchs, mafiosos, party members, and mayors, run over each other, shoot each other, stab each other, poison each other , or kill via any other desirable method…. Then once the last one has died, we can all move back and be safe, and hopefully a little richer.