RFE/RL – Baku Sees Constitutional Referendum In Armenia

Azerbaijan objects to a preamble to the current Armenian constitution referring to a 1990 declaration of independence, which in turn cites a 1989 unification act adopted by the legislative bodies of Soviet Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. The only legal way to remove that reference is to adopt a new constitution through a referendum.

While rejecting the Azerbaijani precondition in public, Prime Minister Pashinian has repeatedly called for the kind of constitutional change that is demanded by Baku. Pashinian said last month that he has a popular mandate to enact such a change after his Civil Contract party’s victory in the June 7 parliamentary elections rejected as fraudulent by the Armenian opposition.

“We are receiving signals that the process of adopting a new constitution will begin in Armenia in the near future,” Aliyev’s chief foreign policy aide, Hikmet Hajiyev, told the Turkish TV channel Haber Global.

“It is possible that a referendum will be organized in Armenia,” he said. “After the removal of the demands addressed to Azerbaijan in the preamble to the Armenian constitution, we will no longer see any obstacles to the final signing of a peace agreement.”

Hajiyev visited Armenia and met with the secretary of the country’s Security Council, Armen Grigorian, one week after the disputed elections. The meeting took place in the northern Tavush province. Pashinian was also in Tavush on a short holiday that day, a fact that prompted opposition and media speculation that he held secret talks with Hajiyev.

The Armenian premier said afterwards that Hajiyev’s trip was aimed at “managing” the risk of another Armenian-Azerbaijani war. He had regularly stated before that peace has already been established between the two South Caucasus states.

The current constitution stipulates that the draft of a new constitution must be approved by at least two-thirds of the parliament deputies before being put on a referendum. Pashinian’s party fell short of such a majority in the June 7 elections.

Pashinian has yet to clarify just how he is planning to overcome this hurdle. He said on July 9 that the new Armenian parliament’s composition does not allow the new constitution’s adoption “solely through intra-parliamentary mechanisms.”

Some Armenian opposition figures and commentators have speculated that Pashinian could hold the referendum without the draft constitution’s mandatory parliamentary approval. But another leader, Ishkhan Saghatelian of the Hayastan alliance, suggested on Tuesday that Pashinian is more likely to pressure the parliamentary opposition to back the draft rejected by it.

“It is obvious that tough developments await Armenia this fall,” Saghatelian. “I do not rule out that he will make an appeal, gather people and try to put pressure on us to satisfy Azerbaijan’s demands because Nikol Pashinian gave his word to Aliyev but did not receive enough votes to fulfill that promise. So he will try to use threats, blackmail, arrests.”

Hasmik Hakobian, a parliament deputy from Civil Contract, said in this regard that Pashinian may well resort to the kind of pressure that he had exerted on a former Armenian parliament in order to become prime minister during the 2018 “velvet revolution.” He was far more popular at the time and faced no political foes capable of rallying massive crowds.

“If our [draft] constitution is acceptable to the people, I don’t think any deputy will oppose that important change,” claimed Hakobian.

To push the draft through the National Assembly, Pashinian’s party will need to co-opt or win over at least six of the 41 opposition parliamentarians representing Hayastan and the Strong Armenia bloc. Saghatelian and Strong Armenia’s parliamentary leader Narek Karapetian insisted that no member of their respective faction will switch sides. Saghatelian said these and other opposition forces should form a united front against the change of the Armenian constitution enacted in 1995.

“We must unite everyone’s efforts so that we can abort the anti-state, anti-Armenian agenda that is being imposed on us,” he told reporters.

—