Hraparak daily of the Republic of Armenia (RA) writes: After the visits of Artsakh [(Nagorno-Karabakh)] president and state minister to Moscow, the processes suggest that the status quo will be maintained on the internal political-governmental platform; the RF [(Russian Federation)] does not want the resignation of either President Arayik Harutyunyan or Minister of State Ruben Vardanyan, so noteworthy developments have begun in Artsakh.

Yesterday it became known that Arayik Harutyunyan initiated an amendment to the Constitution in case the position of the president remains vacant. According to the current Constitution, after the resignation of the president, both the government and the parliament are automatically dissolved. After the abovementioned amendment, the parliament can elect a new president during force majeure or martial law, in case of resignation (death) of the president.

It is noteworthy that this provision was included in the package of constitutional amendments which was developed in the past months, but at the end of the year, Arayik Harutyunyan withdrew the package from the parliament. There were reports that he regretted and did not want to change the Constitution.

Yesterday, the package was made post-mortem; according to some reports, under the compulsion of the RA authorities. Our sources say that [Armenia’s PM] Nikol Pashinyan is worried about the maintenance of the status quo in Artsakh and wants to form, through constitutional amendments, new [Artsakh] authorities subject only to him.