RFE/RL – Armenia Report – 04?07/2018

                                        Saturday, April 07, 2018



Sarkisian Sees Key Government Role For Himself, Karapetian
April 07, 2018

        • Emil Danielyan

Armenia - Outgoing President Serzh Sarkisian and outgoing Prime Minister Karen 
Karapetian meet in Yerevan, 7 April 2018.

Two days before completing his second term in office, President Serzh Sarkisian 
made clear on Saturday he and the outgoing Prime Minister Karen Karapetian will 
bear "the burden of responsibility” for Armenia’s government for the next four 
years.

Meeting with Karapetian in the presidential palace, Sarkisian gave further 
indications that he will take over as Armenia’s prime minister later this month 
and thus remain the country’s most powerful man. He said he also envisages a 
key government role for Karapetian, praising the latter’s 18-month track record.

“Taking this opportunity, I want to thank you for the good job and friendship 
and want you to pass on my thanks to the members of the government,” Sarkisian 
said in televised remarks.

“We have worked together very well in this period but must also bear in mind 
that our party won a popular vote of confidence in the [April 2017] 
parliamentary elections and that the Republican Party (HHK) has a mandate to 
form a government until 2022,” he went on. “And that means the burden of 
responsibility for the country’s development will be on the Republican Party 
and us in the first instance: me, as the party’s chairman, and you, as the 
party’s first deputy chairman.

“Obviously, members of the party’s executive body, council and territorial 
chapters will bear responsibility, but I am talking here about personal 
responsibility. And we are certainly obliged to stay the course.”

“So we still have a lot to do,” he said, implying that the HHK leadership will 
formally nominate its candidate for prime minister next week.

The ruling party, which has a comfortable majority in the parliament, is widely 
expected to install Sarkisian as prime minister on April 17. Karapetian, for 
his part, is tipped to become first deputy prime minister chiefly responsible 
for the Armenian government’s economic policies.


Armenia - President Serzh Sarkisian and Prime Minister Karen Karapetian arrive 
at an election campaign rally in Yerevan, 31Mar2017.
Karapetian and all members of his cabinet will tender their resignations 
immediately after Armen Sarkissian, a businessman and diplomat who has lived in 
Britain for nearly three decades, is sworn in as Armenia’s new president on 
Monday. Sarkissian (no relation to Serzh) will have largely ceremonial powers 
due to the country’s switch to a parliamentary system of government.

Karapetian told Serzh Sarkisian that his cabinet has succeeded in achieving 
“all macro-objectives which were set up by you.” He said he looks forward to 
striving to meet “very ambitious” socioeconomic targets in the years ahead.

“That will certainly require hard and consistent work and audacity,” said the 
54-year-old former business executive. “We do see the directions in which we 
should move forward. I think that very interesting times await us.”

“According to our forecasts, for the next three or four years we are going to 
achieve certain economic successes which will allow us to implement 
long-lasting, fundamental and profound reforms,” he declared.

Karapetian pledged to embark on such reforms after being appointed prime 
minister in September 2016. His government’s stated efforts to improve the 
domestic investment climate and tackle corruption have been praised by the 
International Monetary Fund but dismissed as a gimmick by the Armenian 
opposition. Opposition leaders have questioned official statistics showing that 
Armenia’s economy grew by 7.5 percent last year.

Opposition groups are even more critical of Sarkisian’s decade-long presidency, 
calling it a gross failure. They also accuse the outgoing president of breaking 
a 2014 pledge not to become prime minister in 2018. Some of them are planning 
to stage street protests next week against his apparent plans to extend his 
rule.


Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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Emil Lazarian

“I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.” - WS