Armenian President, PM Discuss Possible Snap Elections

Armenian President Armen Sarkisian met with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian in Yerevan on March 13 as part of a presidential effort to defuse the political crisis that has gripped that Caucasus country since a cease-fire was signed to end intense fighting over a breakaway region of neighboring Azerbaijan.

Opposition-led street protests have targeted Pashinian since the truce was signed in early November 2020, surrendering control of some regions around Nagorno-Karabakh that had been under ethnic Armenian control for decades.

Azerbaijani forces mostly routed overmatched Armenian forces on the battlefield during the six-week intensification of a nearly three-decade, mostly “frozen,” conflict.

Sarkisian’s office said the two men discussed “the situation in the country [and] ways of resolving it and overcoming the internal political crisis.”

“In this context, they discussed holding early parliamentary elections as a solution,” the presidential office said.

Sarkisian had asked for the meeting.

After a break, opposition parties and other critics renewed their protests to demand Pashinian’s exit in late February.

The leaders of the pro-government My Step parliamentary faction and one of the two opposition factions, Bright Armenia, also accepted Sarkisian’s invitation to March 13 talks, and their meetings with the president were planned for later in the day.

In a statement disseminated late on March 12, the president’s office said that the two other sides invited to the talks — the parliamentary opposition Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) and the Homeland Salvation Movement, an alliance of about a dozen political parties and groups, including the BHK, demanding Pashinian’s resignation — had proposed their own agendas and set conditions for the meeting.

Sarkisian’s office said that made the format of talks in which all invited parties would meet at one table “unfeasible.”

As Pashinian visited the presidential compound in a heavily guarded motorcade, supporters of the Homeland Salvation Movement staged more protests in the adjacent boulevard that they have been blocking since late February.

The opposition movement continues to insist that Pashinian must step down and a provisional government led by its leader Vazgen Manukian be formed before snap parliamentary elections can be held in a year.

Ishkhan Saghatelian, one of the leaders of the movement, said that in order to be able to discuss their possible participation in snap elections, Pashinian must first step down and then the parliament must be dissolved.

Pashinian, who was swept to power by a peaceful protest movement in 2018, has rejected calls for his immediate resignation but left the door open to early elections.

Talking to several media on March 12, the leader of the BHK, Gagik Tsarukian, announced an upcoming meeting with Pashinian.

He repeated the demand that the prime minister resign and that snap parliamentary elections be held as early as possible to end the current political crisis.

Pashinian’s allies hold a comfortable majority in parliament.

He and his political team have sought assurances from the two opposition factions excluding the risk of upheavals in the country.

This post was originally published on Radio Free.