Pashinyan’s goal is to become Armenia’s major opposition leader

YEREVAN, April 20. /ARKA/. Armenian MP Nikol Pashinyan’s goal is to become the nation’s main opposition leader, Alexander Iskandaryan, the director of the Caucasus Institute in Yerevan, said today.

“Nikol Pashiryan’s main goal is to become Armenia’s main opposition leader not only in the eyes of its  citizens, but also for Moscow, Brussels and Washington, and he has accomplished this task brilliantly. Today, there is no other figure in the country who can stand next to him,” Iskandaryan said.

He said Pashinyan needs a strategy to overcome the current situation, adding also that it will be difficult for him to capitalize now, nevertheless the game for the next four years has already been played, and it’s pointless to go to any agreements.

 “Pashinyan would be given a gift if now the authorities put him in prison,” Iskandaryan said. The anti-government protests in Armenia began on April 13 after Armenia’s ruling Republican Party nominated former president Serzh Sargsyan for the prime minister’s post. Serzh Sargsyan resigned as president on April 9 and was elected as prime minister during a special session of parliament on April 17 by a vote of 77 to 17.

According to  Armenia’s amended its constitution, approved in a national referendum in 2015, Armenia has switched  the government from a semi-presidential to a parliamentary system making the presidency largely ceremonial and strengthening the office of the prime minister.

The protests are led by Nikol Pashinyan, the head of the opposition Yelk parliamentary faction, who declared April 17 the beginning of popular, non-violent “velvet revolution” urging  demonstrators to keep besieging ministries, the prosecutor’s office, the central bank and other governmental buildings. -0-