Armenia celebrates as PM bows to 11 days of mass protests and resigns
Armenian Prime Minister Serzh Sarksyan yesterday said he was resigning to protect civic peace after 11 days of mass protests that have plunged the impoverished former Soviet republic into political crisis.
Mr Sarksyan, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, had served as Armenia’s president for a decade until this month, and had faced accusations of clinging to power when parliament elected him as prime minister last week.
Under a revised constitution, the office now holds the most power in the tiny southern Caucasus nation, while the presidency has become largely ceremonial.
Pressure on the 63-year-old to quit increased sharply yesterday when unarmed soldiers in the capital Yerevan joined the anti-government protests that erupted on April 13.
Although peaceful, the tumult has threatened to destabilise Armenia, a key Russian ally in a volatile region riven by its decades-long, conflict with Azerbaijan. Moscow, which has two military bases in Armenia, was closely watching events.
“I got it wrong,” Mr Sarksyan said. “In the current situation there are several solutions but I won’t choose any of them. It’s not my style. I am quitting the country’s leadership and the post of prime minister of Armenia.”
He said he was bowing to protesters’ demands and wanted his country to remain peaceful.
Armenia’s 2025 dollar-denominated bond fell 0.83 cents after Mr Sarksyan announced his intention to resign, hitting a one-year low.
Former Armenian prime minister Karen Karapetyan, an ally of Mr Sarksyan from his ruling pro-Russian Republican Party, was named as acting prime minister, Russia’s RIA news agency said, quoting the Armenian government.
The country’s political parties in parliament now have seven days to put forward the name of a new prime minister. Mr Sarksyan’s allies are still in key government positions, and it remains unclear whether his leaving will bring real change.
Protesters loudly celebrated Mr Sarksyan’s announcement. Some hugged policemen in the street amid cries of “Hooray”, while others beeped car horns and some residents of Yerevan were dancing in the streets.
During the protests, tens of thousands of people marched through Yerevan and other towns, blocking streets and staging sit-ins.
On Sunday police detained three opposition leaders and nearly 200 protesters, drawing a rebuke from the EU. Yesterday, police released Nikol Pashinyan, a politician regarded as the main opposition leader.
Asked about the crisis before Mr Sarksyan’s resignation, the Kremlin yesterday called Armenia an “extraordinarily important country” for Russia but dismissed the idea it might intervene, calling the crisis a domestic matter.
Last week Mr Putin phoned Mr Sarksyan to congratulate him on his win.
As president, Mr Sarksyan took Armenia, a country of about 3 million people, into a Russia-backed economic bloc.
The protesters’ complaints were mainly domestic and focused on corruption and poverty in a country that won independence from Moscow in 1991 but has been hampered by its conflict with Azerbaijan over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
In what may have been a turning point in the protests, uniformed soldiers marched through Yerevan yesterday morning with the protesters.
Images broadcast on the internet and social media showed the soldiers hugging protesters and waving the national flag, in a development the Armenian Defence Ministry condemned as illegal.
Opposition leader Mr Pashinyan had told Mr Sarkasyan that his time was up in a tense meeting on Sunday.
“The situation in Armenia has changed, you don’t have the power of which you are told,” he told him. “In Armenia, the power has passed to the people.
I got it wrong. In the current situation there are several solutions but I won’t choose any of them. It’s not my style SERZH SARKSYAN Armenian Prime Minister