YEREVAN May 6
The current political crisis in Armenia is unlikely to be resolved once opposition leader Nikol Pashinyan is elected prime minister, an Armenian political analyst told TASS of Sunday.
YEREVAN, May 6. /TASS/. The current political crisis in Armenia is unlikely to be resolved once opposition leader Nikol Pashinyan is elected prime minister, an Armenian political analyst told TASS of Sunday.
"Pashinyan’s election will not help Armenia overcome the political crisis. It looks like a hope for stabilization in the country may emerge only after early parliamentary elections, which will reveal the actual weight of political parties in the country," said Grant Melik-Shakhnazaryan, head of the Yerevan-based Voskanapat analytical center.
"Now, it is not clear which of the political parties is the strongest in Armenia," he noted. "On the one hand, it is obvious that opposition leader Pashinyan has managed to consolidate grass-roots public strata and remove the ruling Republican Party from power. On the other hand, it is likewise obvious that Pashinyan also has problems. He has to cooperate with the parties and politicians of, to put it mildly, ambiguous authority in Armenia. It will be difficult for Pashinyan to win parliamentary elections with such a team."
"Euphoria is Armenia is ceding to the yeaning to positive changes already today and, hence, to disappointment," Melik-Shakhnazaryan said.
Mass opposition rallies erupted in Armenia on 13. On April 23, newly appointed Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan resigned amid ongoing protests. Two days later, the ruling parliamentary coalition broke down following the exit of the Dashnaktsutyun party.
After the Armenian parliament turned down Pashinyan’s candidature as a prime minister on May 1, he called on his supporters to resume large-scale protest rallies. The next round of voting at the parliament will he held on May 8.
Set up in 2009, the Voskanapat independent analytical center studies regional security problems and analyzes political processes in Armenia.