Despite the fact that we continued to have a majority in parliament after the 44-day war, the ruling power, the Civil Contract Party decided to go to snap parliamentary elections in order to overcome the sociopsychological crisis that emerged due to the consequences of the war; and for this purpose, I resigned from the post of prime minister. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said this during his address Tuesday at the plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg France.
He recalled that two days after the dissolution of the Armenian parliament, on May 12, 2021, Azerbaijani troops violated the border with Armenia in a 100km section of the border, and penetrated up to 4km deep into the sovereign territory of Armenia.
"In this situation, the CSTO, which is considered the security system of Armenia, and the countries that have security obligations towards Armenia at the bilateral level, did not help us with anything; they left us all alone.
"The purpose of this provocation before the parliamentary elections was to fail the upcoming parliamentary elections and to paralyze the Armenian state, the statehood, or at least to form a lackey government. But in this environment, the people of Armenia were able to stand firmly in the positions of defense of Armenia's sovereignty, independence, and democracy. Such elections were organized which were internationally recognized as free, democratic, transparent, and competitive.
"For the first time in the history of Armenia, the elections became a way to overcome the internal crisis and not the other way around. This is the main difference between Armenia before and after the nationwide, non-violent revolution of 2018," declared Pashinyan.
He emphasized that after the revolution, no result of any election at any level in Armenia was falsified.
"This is what has changed in Armenia in the last 56 years. But democracy in Armenia has received and continues to receive strong blows, which operate in an almost exactly repeated scenario. External aggression, then the inaction of Armenia's allies in the field of security, then the war or humanitarian situation, or the external security threat, attempts to subvert Armenia's democracy and sovereignty, which is expressed by hybrid technologies, provoking internal instability directed by external forces," the Armenian PM stated.
