{"id":157657,"date":"2021-05-10T19:08:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-10T19:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=196904"},"modified":"2021-05-10T19:08:00","modified_gmt":"2021-05-10T19:08:00","slug":"armenias-parliament-dissolves-in-final-step-toward-early-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/05\/10\/armenias-parliament-dissolves-in-final-step-toward-early-elections\/","title":{"rendered":"Armenia’s Parliament Dissolves In Final Step Toward Early Elections"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Armenia’s parliament failed to elect a prime minister for the second time on May 10, triggering its own dissolution in a final move toward early elections next month.<\/p>\n

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, who was swept to power in pro-democracy protests in 2018, resigned last month to run in an early election after facing criticism over his handling of last year\u2019s conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.<\/p>\n

This was the second time lawmakers rejected Pashinian’s candidacy, as part of a political deal made earlier between the parliament majority represented by Pashinian’s My Step Alliance and two opposition factions — Prosperous Armenia and Bright Armenia.<\/p>\n

Only one lawmaker voted for Pashinian’s candidacy, one voted against, with 76 abstaining.<\/p>\n

Under Armenia\u2019s constitution, the parliament must fail to elect a prime minister twice in order to be dissolved.<\/p>\n

Both times Pashinian was nominated by My Step as a candidate to maintain the procedure for the parliament\u2019s dissolution.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Pashinian has continued as caretaker prime minister.<\/p>\n

Political Crisis<\/strong><\/big><\/p>\n

Armenia has been embroiled in a political crisis since Pashinian signed a Russian-brokered cease-fire on November 9, 2020, to end a 44-day war with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh.<\/p>\n

Pashinian agreed in March to hold the early vote next month. He has indicated that he favors June 20 as the date for the elections.<\/p>\n

Opinion polls show that public confidence in Pashinian’s government has fallen sharply since then, with its approval rating falling from 60 percent to around 30 percent last month.<\/p>\n

Pashinian has come under fire since agreeing to the Moscow-brokered deal with Azerbaijan, which took effect on November 10, ending six weeks of fierce fighting in and around the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh that saw ethnic Armenian forces suffer battlefield defeat.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n\n<\/div>\n


\n<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Under the cease-fire, a part of Nagorno-Karabakh and all seven districts around it were placed under Azerbaijani administration after almost 30 years of control by Armenians.<\/p>\n

Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but the ethnic Armenians who make up most of the region’s population reject Azerbaijani rule.<\/p>\n

Observers expect Armenian ex-President Robert Kocharian — who signed a deal with two opposition parties to run as leader of their alliance on May 9 — to become Pashinian\u2019s main challenger in the elections.<\/p>\n

Addressing thousands of his supporters at a rally in central Yerevan <\/a><\/strong>on May 9, Kocharian said that losing power was the price the Pashinian government should pay for the defeat in the war.<\/p>\n

With reporting by Reuters<\/h6>\n<\/div>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Armenia\u2019s parliament failed to elect a prime minister for the second time on May 10, triggering its own dissolution in a final move toward early elections next month.\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3246,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,4,23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157657"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3246"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157657"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":157658,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157657\/revisions\/157658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}