YEREVAN. – Are you threatening now? Armenia National Assembly (NA) deputy speaker Alen Simonyan, who is also a member of the majority My Step faction in the NA, stated this during a briefing with reporters in parliament on Tuesday, referring to a reporter's question that if the government refuses to hold snap parliamentary elections and closes the way to a change of government in a constitutional way, does he not think that worse things await them?

"I doubt you represent the public mood. You are quoting the mood of a specific circle. As for the snap elections, we proposed that idea, whereas the opposition rejected [it]," he said.

To the question as to whether by its decision the government closes the possibility of carrying out a change of government in a constitutional way, Simonyan responded: "So when we were proposing to go for snap elections and the opposition was refusing it, wasn’t the constitutional way being closed by that? In fact, the elected government, having no demand from the opposition to hold snap elections, declares that if there is no such demand, we will continue to work, is it unconstitutional?

When our colleagues will be ready to discuss such a thing, we will discuss the issue of resuming that discussion. Until they are ready, My Step has its prime minister [i.e., Nikol Pashinyan]. If another opinion, we created that opportunity, the opposition did not respond. I heard the opposition's proposal: ‘Let Nikol Pashinyan resign!’ And I say: let them all resign because they have nothing to do with the people of the Republic of Armenia. Yes, the prime minister has the highest political [popularity] rating today among the current politicians. While not ruling out that the [popularity] rating of My Step and the rest of the [political] forces has dropped to some extent, I insist that the prime minister has the highest [popularity] rating today."

And when asked why they force the opposition not to nominate a candidate for prime minister in case of Pashinyan's resignation, Alen Simonyan responded: "Because we want to keep the political field free from unnecessary shocks."