YEREVAN. – “No matter how much the [Prosperous Armenia Party] PAP was attempting to speak about supporting [President] Serzh Sargsyan [in next year’s presidential elections] in return for receiving thirty percent of the Government, six ministerial positions as well as the PM’s post, our sources close to the Presidential Palace inform that Serzh Sargsyan does not intend to give them more than four positions,” Hraparak daily writes and continues:   

“According to the same sources, Serzh Sargsyan was prepared to likewise offer the Deputy PM’s job to [PAP leader] Gagik Tsarukyan, or anyone from his team. Our interlocutors were not [even] ruling out the [possibility of] holding of a constitutional referendum—simultaneously with the presidential elections—whereby Armenia would have made a smooth transition to the prime ministerial system of governance, just as Georgia did. But Serzh Sargsyan’s attitude concerning this and the aforementioned has completely changed.  

And Tsarukyan’s demeanor, elusiveness, [and] tactic of buying time have annoyed the ‘waiting party’ where, in terms of the matter of supporting, it was said: ‘Look, do I [actually] want him to stand alongside of me?”