Early parliamentary elections will be held on June 20 in Armenia, which are expected to put an end to the serious political crisis that the country of the Caucasus is going through, as announced today, Thursday (18/3) the Prime Minister of Armenia Nicole Pasinian.
Pasinian said in a Facebook post that “The best way out” of the crisis is holding parliamentary elections after resisting calls from the opposition to step down after Azerbaijan’s military defeat in Nagorno-Karabakh in the autumn of 2020.
The date was decided after meetings with President Armen Sarkisian and leaders of two major opposition parties, Pasinian said.
The Armenian Prime Minister is accused by the opposition of treason after accepting in November a peace deal proposed by Moscow ratifying a humiliating defeat against Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region.
Demonstrations and crisis weeks
Pasinian, who came to power in 2018 thanks to a popular uprising against the corruption of the post-Soviet elites, but resisted pressure from his decision to expel high-ranking military officials in late February, accusing them of plotting a coup; led to demonstrations.
Some protesters even camped in front of Parliament for a while, saying they were not going to leave until the prime minister left.
The latter also today refused to back down in a court ruling ordering him to reinstate the army chief of staff. He was also able to count on the mobilization of thousands of his supporters in the streets to remain the leader of the country, with many seeing in the maneuvers of the opposition the efforts of the old elites to return to power.
But after weeks of crisis, the two camps reached an agreement in early elections in June. The two opposition leaders who met with Pasinyan, Gagik Tsarukyan of Prosperous Armenia and Edmon Marukyan of Brilliant Armenia, welcomed the decision.
“We need a new government for our country to overcome the current crisis. “Early elections are the only way to do it,” Tsarukian said on Facebook, with his colleague talking about a “decision acceptable to all.”
Prosperous Armenia, the largest opposition party, holds 24 of the 132 seats in parliament. Radiant Armenia, for its part, has 17 deputies, and the Alliance led by Pasinyan’s party has a comfortable majority of 83 deputies.
The role played by Nagorno-Karabakh
The failure of the Armenian army in the fall against Azerbaijan to take control of Nagorno-Karabakh deeply marked the Armenians, who had emerged victorious in a first conflict at the time of the collapse of the USSR.
The ceasefire, negotiated by President Vladimir Putin after six weeks of fighting that left a total of 6,000 people dead, includes significant territorial losses for the Armenian side and the deployment of Russian peacekeepers.
Although Armenia retains control of most of Nagorno-Karabakh, it has been forced to cede the symbolic city of Susa as well as a slope of Azeri territory surrounding the region.
The ceasefire was agreed at a time when Armenia was in dire straits with retreating on several fronts and while the Azeri army was threatening Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh.
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