Armenia ruling party: Snap election cannot have positive impact on country’s development

YEREVAN. – A snap election cannot have a positive impact on the development of our country.

Vahram Baghdasaryan, head of the National Assembly (NA) faction of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA), on Tuesday told the aforementioned to reporters in Parliament.

He noted this when asked whether the RPA will favor a snap parliamentary election in the country.

“A snap election can’t have a positive impact on the development of our country; on the contrary, it can throw [the country] back,” Baghdasaryan stated. “We would have noticed any protest action after the [parliamentary] elections in 2017 (…). But everyone was happy after those elections; that is, it’s not the elections that have caused a wave of protests. There is dissatisfaction that we don’t deny.”

And when asked whether Armenia will have a new Prime Minister on Tuesday, he responded as follows, in particular: “That depends on the moods of the MPs. At any rate, we will have a PM within his constitutional term because the country can’t be kept paralyzed.”

 Baghdasaryan, however, said he is not worried that the situation could strain if the PM is not elected on Tuesday.

“I’m not one of those politicians to act under pressure,” Vahram Baghdasaryan added. “We need to think about what progress will our country have—or will it have at all, or not—six months later, one year later.”

The NA on Tuesday will convene a special session to debate and then vote on the next PM of Armenia. Pashinyan is the sole candidate nominated for this position.

On Monday morning, the Yelk faction held a meeting and nominated Nikol Pashinyan its candidate for the next PM of Armenia. 

Also on the same day, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) Dashnaktsutyun Party and the “Tsarukyan” Factions announced that they, too, will vote for Pashinyan.

But the ruling RPA NA faction has not yet made a final decision on how to vote.  To note, however, RPA faction head Vahram Baghdasaryan had stated that if the other three political forces represented in parliament nominated a single candidate, their faction would not get in the way of Armenia having a new PM on Tuesday.

Nikol Pashinyan on Monday held talks with all parliamentary factions. His talk with the RPA faction was open to the media.

The RPA, Tsarukyan, Way Out, and ARF factions have 58, 31, 9 and 7 seats, respectively, in parliament.

At least 53 votes are needed to elect the new Prime Minister of Armenia.