Monday,
Ruling Team ‘Not Afraid Of Kocharian’
• Narine Ghalechian
Armenia -- Supporters of former President Robert Kocharian protest outside a
court in Yerevan, June 19, 2019.
A close associate of Nikol Pashinian insisted on Monday that the Armenian prime
minister and his political team are not afraid of former President Robert
Kocharian’s bid to return to power.
Minister for Territorial Administration and Infrastructures Suren Papikian
specifically denied any connection between the authorities’ apparent decision
not to hold snap parliamentary elections in the coming months and Kocharian’s
stated confidence in his electoral prospects.
Kocharian declared late last month that he and his political allies will contest
and win snap parliamentary elections if they are held by the current authorities.
The 66-year-old ex-president reaffirmed his political ambitions in an interview
with the Sputnik news agency published on Saturday. “If the elections are held
they will most probably be bipolar,” he said, implying that a political force
led by him will be Pashinian’s main challenger.
The ruling My Step bloc announced the following day that Pashinian and lawmakers
allied to him see no need for snap elections despite the prime minister’s
readiness to hold them expressed on December 25. It said that most Armenians do
not want such a vote.
Armenia -- Minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure Suren
Papikian speaks at a news conference in Yerevan, February 26, 2020.
Papikian, who also heads the governing board of Pashinian’s Civil Contract
party, My Step’s dominant component, dismissed suggestions that the authorities
fear being defeated by Kocharian.
“We are not afraid of any competition, and it is not clear to me with which or
through which political force Robert Kocharian would participate in elections,”
he said, answering questions from Facebook users at the RFE/RL studio in Yerevan.
Papikian stood by the ruling bloc’s claim that there is no popular “demand” for
dissolving the current parliament and holding elections later this year, let
alone replacing Pashinian.
“We have received no such feedback from the public,” said the minister. “On the
contrary, we have only received [messages of] ‘do not resign.’”
“I don’t exclude that we have had shortcomings,” he went on. “It wouldn’t be
normal if there were no people disappointed with us. “It’s a natural process.
Some will start to believe, others may have some expectations which we do not
manage to live up to.”
Kocharian has been at loggerheads with Pashinian’s government ever since it took
office following the “Velvet Revolution” of April-May 2018. He was arrested in
July 2018 on coup charges rejected by him as politically motivated.
The ex-president, who had ruled Armenia from 1998-2008, was released on bail in
June 2020 pending the outcome of his ongoing trial. The trial resumed on January
19 nearly four months after being effectively interrupted by the war in
Nagorno-Karabakh.
Armenian Government Plans To Set Up Interior Ministry
Armenia -- Riot police guard a court building in Yerevan during the trial of
former President Robert Kocharian and three other former officials, May 13, 2020.
The Armenian government is planning to create a ministry of interior as part of
a major structural reform of the national police service, Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian announced on Monday.
Armenia had an interior ministry until former President Robert Kocharian
abolished it and turned the police into a separate structure subordinate to him
two decades ago. The police became accountable to the prime minister after
Kocharian’s successor, Serzh Sarkisian, engineered the country’s transition to a
parliamentary system of government.
The Armenian Ministry of Justice recommended the re-establishment of the
ministry headed by a full-fledged cabinet member in a three-year strategy of
police reforms proposed to the government a year ago.
Pashinian signaled his approval of the idea during a meeting with senior
government and law-enforcement officials held on Monday.
“A process of forming the Ministry of Internal Affairs soon is on our agenda,”
he said, adding that it will be part of “very important” reforms of the Armenian
police.
A government statement on the meeting said Pashinian discussed with the
officials a “preliminary model of the structure” of the ministry as well as the
ongoing creation of a new police unit tasked with road policing, crowd control
and street patrol. The statement gave no details of the proposed structure.
Pashinian faced opposition calls to turn the police as well as the National
Security Service (NSS) into ministries accountable to the parliament after he
swept to power in May 2018. He opposed such a change until recently.
Armenian Opposition Slams Government’s U-Turn On Elections
• Gayane Saribekian
• Karlen Aslanian
Armenia -- Edmon Marukian (L), the leader of the opposition Bright Armenia
Party, talks to senior pro-government lawmakers on the parliament floor,
Yerevan, January 18, 2021.
One of the two opposition parties represented in Armenia’s parliament on Monday
denounced the authorities for seemingly abandoning plans to hold fresh
parliamentary elections and said they will only radicalize their political foes
and other critics.
Edmon Marukian, the leader of the Bright Armenia Party (LHK), warned of more
public calls for a violent overthrow of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and his
government.
“Of course, this is not Bright Armenia’s [preferred] path,” he said. “But that
accumulated [anti-government] energy will burst somewhere and the authorities
will be primarily responsible for that.”
The LHK is not part of an alliance of 17 more radical opposition parties that
launched anti-government protests immediately after the Russian-brokered
ceasefire that stopped the war in Nagorno-Karabakh on November 10. But it too
demanded Pashinian’s resignation over his handling of the war.
Pashinian rejected the opposition demands but expressed readiness in late
December to hold snap elections in the coming months. Opposition forces have
since continued to insist that they must be held by a new and interim government.
In a weekend statement, Pashinian and his My Step bloc said they see no need for
snap polls because of the opposition’s stance and what described as a lack of
popular “demand” for the parliament’s dissolution.
“They have decided not to hold elections,” said Marukian. He claimed that
Pashinian changed his mind after realizing that he cannot win reelection.
A senior member of Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK), the other parliamentary
opposition force, insisted, for her part, that Pashinian was never serious about
holding fresh elections.
“The conscious, thinking and patriotic part of the society concerned about the
country’s future -- and they are a majority -- is demanding that Nikol Pashinian
resign as soon as possible,” Naira Zohrabian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
“Nikol Pashinian cannot be one of the few leaders in world history who stayed in
power after surrendering lands,” she said.
Lawmakers representing the ruling bloc insisted, meanwhile, most Armenians do
not want regime change or pre-term elections.
“A vast part of the population is demanding that we do not opt for elections and
keep doing our job instead,” one of them Hayk Konjorian told RFE/RL’s Armenian
Service.
“If the vast majority of our people wanted us to hold pre-term elections … then
citizens would organize themselves without the 17 [opposition] forces or present
their demand to us together with other political forces,” said Konjorian. He
said they would specifically take to the streets.
The opposition alliance comprising the BHK and 16 other groups announced earlier
on Monday that it will resume anti-government protests on February 20.
Pashinian, Allies See No Need For Snap Elections
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian meets with Prosperous Armenia Party
leader Gagik Tsarukian, December 29, 2020.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and lawmakers representing his My Step alliance
spoke out against holding fresh parliamentary elections to resolve the political
crisis in Armenia when they met late on Sunday.
In a short statement, My Step said the participants of the meeting saw no
popular “demand” for the conduct of such elections proposed by Pashinian on
December 25. They also noted the proposal’s rejection by the two opposition
parties represented in the Armenian parliament, said the statement.
Pashinian offered to hold snap elections following opposition protests sparked
by the war in Nagorno-Karabakh stopped by a Russian-brokered ceasefire on
November 10.
Virtually all Armenian opposition groups blame Pashinian for the Armenian side’s
defeat in the war and want him to hand over power to an interim government that
would snap elections within a year. The leaders of the two parliamentary
opposition parties, Prosperous Armenia (BHK) and Bright Armenia (LHK), insisted
on the prime minister’s resignation when they met with him later in December.
The BHK is a key member of the Homeland Salvation Movement, an alliance of 17
opposition parties that staged the anti-government demonstrations in November
and December. Representatives of the alliance said on February 3 that it will
resume soon the protests aimed at forcing Pashinian to step down.
Reacting to My Step’s statement, the Homeland Salvation Movement coordinator,
Ishkhan Saghatelian, announced on Monday that the first rally will be held in
Yerevan’s Liberty Square on February 20. “Those citizens who thought about
getting rid of the government of evil through elections will now take to the
streets,” he wrote on Facebook.
Saghatelian said Pashinian “abandoned” the idea of holding fresh elections
because he realized that he stands no chance of winning them.
Some opposition forces, including the BHK, seemed ready to participate in the
possible elections even if they were held by Pashinian. Former Robert Kocharian
also spoke out against an election boycott favored by other opposition groups.
Kocharian expressed confidence on January 27 that he and his political allies
will win the elections. In an interview with the Sputnik news agency published
on Saturday, he likewise suggested that he would be Pashinian’s main election
challenger.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2021 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.