Armenian parliament 'fails' to elect Pashinyan as prime minister
YEREVAN, May 3. /ARKA/. An emergency session of the Armenian parliament 'failed' today to elect Nikol Pashinyan as prime minister. Pashinyan resigned late last month to pave the way for early parliamentary elections, scheduled to take place on June 20.
One lawmaker voted for the candidacy of Nikol Pashinyan, 3 voted against and the majority controlled by Pashinyan's My Step alliance, abstained. The Prosperous Armenia opposition party did not participate in the voting.
According to the Constitution of Armenia, early elections to the National Assembly are held not earlier than thirty and not later than forty-five days after the dissolution of the National Assembly. At the same time, the parliament itself will need at least 14 days to dissolve, since the National Assembly can be dissolved if the Prime Minister resigns.
After the resignation of the Prime Minister, the factions of the National Assembly have the right to nominate candidates within seven days; if this does not happen, then a new election of the Prime Minister is held, in which candidates nominated by at least one third of the total number of deputies have the right to participate.
If Prime Minister is not elected by a majority vote of the total number of deputies, the National Assembly is dissolved by force of law.
Pashinyan said earlier that after resignation he will stay in office until the parliamentary elections. Pashinyan said that the ruling My Step alliance will nominated him as a candidate for the post of Prime Minister, since it is a constitutional requirement. According to him, other factions will not nominate a candidate.
'My Step will not elect me as prime minister. I will be nominated for the second time and again there will be no other candidates, and I will not be elected either and according to the law, the parliament will be considered to be dissolved," he said.
The prime minister said that if a parliament-represented opposition party violates this accord, it will be "political suicide" for it. "If that happens My Step faction will elect me as Prime Minister and that will close the issue. I think no one will attempt political suicide," he said.
Nikol Pashinyan has been facing opposition demands to resign since he signed a peace deal in November with Azerbaijani and Russian leaders to end the 44-day war in Nagorno-Karabakh that claimed thousands of young lives, and saw Azerbaijan reclaim control over large parts of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding areas that had been held by Armenian forces for more than a quarter of a century. -0-
