Armenian opposition bloc not to join constitutional reforms

Arminfo
11 Jul 05

YEREVAN

The opposition Justice bloc will not join the process of
constitutional changes despite its original pledge to do so if the
ruling coalition accepts all the proposals of the Venice Commission,
the bloc decided at a meeting today.

The leader of the opposition National Democratic Party [NDP], Shavarsh
Kocharyan, told journalists that the bloc’s decision not to join the
constitutional reforms could be explained by the fact that the ruling
coalition had not included the proposals of the parliament opposition
in the draft package of constitutional reforms. Kocharyan recalled
that the opposition suggested that the president’s powers should be
reduced in terms of forming a government. In other words, the National
Assembly [parliament] should have the right to appoint the prime
minister after rejecting the president’s candidate.

“However, under the draft constitutional reforms the president has the
power to nominate a prime minister twice to the parliament and to
dissolve the National Assembly if it rejects the nomination a second
time,” Kocharyan noted.

The president also has a dominant role in forming the judiciary, the
MP alleged. Moreover, the NDP leader said that the draft
constitutional reforms do not have a provision for the direct election
of the mayor of Yerevan, something that the opposition had been
insisting on. He also noted that there is no item on the agenda of the
Justice bloc on stopping its boycott of the parliament’s law making
activities since the reasons for the opposition’s boycott have not
been eliminated.

In turn, a member of the governing board of the Anrapetutyun
[Republic] Party, Smbat Ayvazyan, said that there is no use
cooperating with the incumbent authorities over any document since the
ruling regime simply pretends to be aspiring to reform domestic laws
in accordance with democratic norms. He said with confidence that the
results of a referendum will be falsified because the authorities
cannot push the document through in a decent way. Ayvazyan said that
Anrapetutyun will issue a statement this week to say that the current
“illegitimate” regime has no right to carry out constitutional
reforms.

[Passage omitted: future plans, background]