Former president Serzh Sargsyan, who ruled Armenia for 10 years, on Monday resigned as prime minister after thousands of people poured into the streets to protest his political maneuvering to cling to power in the former Soviet republic.
The stunning development touched off jubilation in the capital, Yerevan, with car horns blaring and people dancing, hugging and waving the Armenian flag.
The opposition called for a meeting with the acting Armenian prime minister to discuss a “peaceful transfer of power.”
Photo: AP
However, parliament, which is controlled by Sargsyan’s party, voted to reduce the powers of the presidency and give them to the prime minister, ultimately installing him in that post last week.
The move echoed a maneuver a decade ago by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The parliament’s action had triggered massive anti-government protests in Yerevan since April 13, with demonstrators blocking government buildings and facing off with police.
Protest leader and lawmaker Nikol Pashinyan on Sunday met with Sargsyan, who walked out of the session after Pashinyan refused to talk about anything but Sargsyan’s resignation.
Pashinyan was later arrested, but abruptly released on Monday.
In his surprise resignation announcement posted on his Web site, Sargsyan said he should not have resisted the opposition’s demands.
“Nikol Pashinyan was right. I was wrong,” Sargsyan said. “The movement on the streets is against my rule. I’m complying with their demands.”
The government quickly named former Armenian prime minister Karen Karapetian as acting prime minister. A Sargsyan ally, he was also mayor of Yerevan and worked in Russia for five years as a top executive of the state-controlled gas giant Gazprom.
Pashinyan told an evening rally of tens of thousands of people at Republic Square in Yerevan that opposition activists want to meet with Karapetian today to discuss a “peaceful transfer of power.”
The opposition would push for an early parliamentary election to prevent Sargsyan running Armenia from behind the scenes, Pashinyan said.
Alexander Iskanderian, director of the Caucasus Institute in Yerevan, said the protests pushed Sargsyan into a corner.
“The protests in the past couple of days have swelled to a point that you either had to use violence or find another way out,” Iskanderian told reporters.
In what appeared to be the first official Russian reaction, Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova lauded Sargsyan’s decision as a move to unify the nation.
“A people who have the strength to keep respect toward each other, despite crucial differences, and stay united even in the most difficult moments of its history is a great people,” Zakharova wrote on Facebook. “Armenia, Russia is always with you.”
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