(RFE/RL) "The place of Armenia's man of the year is vacant," writes Aravot, seeing nobody who deserves to occupy it. The country's president, prime minister, government members and parliament deputies have done little to make the life easier for the vast majority of citizens.

Aravot also reports that Nairi Hunanian, the leader of the armed gang that sprayed the Armenian parliament with bullets in October 1997, has sent a long letter to the presidential commission on human rights. Hunanian seeks to prove that, by killing Armenia's prime minister, parliament speaker and six other officials, he saved the people from "destruction." That will undoubtedly be his line of defense during the upcoming trial.

Stepan Demirchian, the younger son of the slain parliament speaker and the chairman of the People's Party of Armenia (HZhK), shares with Hayastani Hanrapetutyun his impressions about meetings with HZhK supporters across Armenia. "The people are preoccupied with two issues: the absolute truth about the October 27 crime and their socioeconomic problems."

Meanwhile, one of the nine deputies, who this week left the parliament's second-largest Kayunutyun (Stability) group, Karen Karapetian, denies rumors that they would like to join the HZhK. "I think that I and my comrades have not looked like childish persons so far," he tells Hayots Ashkhar.

Yerkir reiterates its view that "political expediency" rather than economic criteria were instrumental in the stance taken by leading political forces during the latest debates in the parliament on next year's state budget. Those parliamentary parties that have government posts backed the submitted draft. Those that have some expectations from the executive adopted a wait-and-see approach. Only the parties with no hopes of being represented in the cabinet said they will definitely vote against the budget. The paper also criticizes Minister for State Revenues Andranik Manukian and his agency for only talking about the huge shadow economy. "Instead of counting the money expected from hypothetical tourism, we had better deal with the chronic plunder in earnest."

"The new year will most probably be cultural-economic," editorializes Zhamanak in anticipation of high-profile celebrations of the 1700th anniversary of Armenia's conversion to Christianity. "It gives us two opportunities: to solve political issues without excessive emotions and deal with economic problems not only theoretically." Perhaps for the first in the ten-year history of independent Armenia, all conditions are in place for "tranquil and creative work." But the paper also cautions: "Reality [in Armenia] is such that creation and destruction have equal chances."