Armenian protesters shut down capital in show of defiance
Armenian protesters blocked roads in and around the capital on Wednesday, responding to a call from opposition leader Nikol Pashinyan for a campaign of civil disobedience to force the ruling elite to relinquish its grip on power.
Ex-soviet Armenia is locked in a political crisis after the ruling party, severely weakened after days of protests that forced its nominee for prime minister to quit, dug in its heels and refused to back Pashinyan to replace him, Reuters reported.
In the capital, Yerevan, all the main streets were blocked by cars, minibuses and garbage bins. The road to the international airport was blocked. A spokesman for the civil aviation authority said one flight had been cancelled.
Protesters marched through the streets, shouting “Nikol! Victory!”, waving flags and blowing horns.
Police tried to persuade protesters to open roads, but did not use force. Local media reported that there were also protests in several other cities in Armenia, a country of three million people that is home to a Russian military base.
Tiny Armenia is strategically valuable for Russia, nestled in mountains between Nato-member Turkey and energy exporter Azerbaijan, with which Armenia has been in a state of conflict since both emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Pashinyan, in an interview with Reuters at a protest in Yerevan where he was surrounded by cheering supporters, said he would keep the pressure on the ruling party.
“My only power is my people. We are not going to give up,” said Pashinyan, dressed in his trademark camouflage T-shirt and cap. “We will continue our strike and disobedience.”
Armenia’s President Armen Sarkissian called for talks this week to try to find a way out of the crisis. The presidency is largely ceremonial, with most authority resting with the prime minister, under a new system that opponents say was devised to let veteran leader Serzh Sarksyan keep his grip on power after his second presidential term expired last month.
“I deeply regret that the political crisis continues despite the fact that everyone is talking about how dangerous it is for the future of the country,” Sarkissian said in a statement.
Sarksyan, forbidden by the Constitution from standing for a third term as president after a decade in office, tried to become prime minister last month. But his switch to the new job triggered protests and he stepped down after just a week.
That appeared to signal a shift in power in a country run by the same cadre of people since the late 1990s, but the ruling Republican Party has so far stopped short of handing authority to Pashinyan.
Pashinyan, a 42-year-old former journalist who spent two years in jail for fomenting unrest after Sarksyan was first elected in 2008, was put forward to parliament as the only nominee for the vacant prime minister’s job.
The Republican Party has a majority in the legislature and after hours of acrimonious debate it withheld its support for Pashinyan, leaving him short of the support he needed.
Supporters of Pashinyan in the streets on Wednesday said the ruling elite had lost popular support and should now step aside.