The former ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK), which still has the largest faction in the National Assembly, has confirmed that it will not vote for Nikol Pashinian in a prime-ministerial election scheduled in parliament later this week, thus clearing the way for the acting prime minister’s plans to force snap general elections.
Pashinian is the sole candidate in the November 1 election after two factions, including his allies, Yelk, and some individual lawmakers formerly affiliated with the HHK, nominated him for the second round of voting.
Under Armenia’s constitution, snap elections can be called only if the National Assembly fails to elect a prime minister twice within two weeks after the prime minister’s resignation, which Pashinian submitted for tactical reasons on October 16.
Lawmakers already failed to elect Pashinian once during a ballot taken on October 24.
Another failure will trigger the dissolution of parliament and holding of fresh elections in the first half of December, with Pashinian and his political team confident of winning an outright majority in the next legislature.
Talking to RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am) on Tuesday, HHK spokesperson and deputy speaker of the outgoing parliament Eduard Sharmazanov confirmed that the former ruling party will not raise obstacles to the dissolution of parliament by fielding its own candidate or voting for Pashinian.
“All political statements of the HHK are clear, straightforward and logical,” Sharmazanov said.“Being against hasty elections in December, nevertheless, we are not going to vote for Pashinian’s candidacy.”
At the same time, the senior HHK member continued his criticism of the current government and its acting head. “It has become clear during the past six months that Pashinian is an eloquent speaker, but a poor prime minister,” Sharmazanov said.
With all the rest parliamentary factions vowing not to support Pashinian’s candidacy, the HHK statement makes the parliament’s dissolution and early elections a foregone conclusion.
Pashinian, who came to power on the wave of antigovernment protests ousting HHK leader Serzh Sarkisian as prime minister last spring, did not have to be nominated to ensure the dissolution of parliament. Under the country’s constitution, the parliament would have to be disbanded even if no one was nominated for the second round of voting. But the popular leader said he chose the way of nomination to use the occasion to address a number of political and economic issues from the parliament tribune.
Facebook Forum