YEREVAN (RFE/RL) — Nikol Pashinyan was formally reappointed as Armenia’s prime minister on Monday, January 14, more than one month after his My Step alliance won snap parliamentary elections resulting from last spring’s Velvet Revolution in the country.
President Armen Sarkissian signed a relevant decree at a meeting with Pashinyan timed to coincide with the inaugural session of the Armenian parliament, in which My Step has a two-thirds majority.
“Congratulations, Mr. Prime Minister,” Sarkissian told the 43-year-old former journalist at the meeting held in the presidential palace in Yerevan.
“Your success is our country’s success, our people’s, everyone’s, including me, success,” he said.
“I want to emphasize that the main political change anticipated in Armenia has already happened: power has been fully returned to the people and democracy has been established in Armenia,” Pashinyan said for his part.
Under the Armenian constitution, Pashinyan has to name members of his cabinet and ask the president to formally appoint them within five days. He will then have 20 days to submit the government’s five-year policy program to the parliament. The program’s approval by the National Assembly will amount to a vote of confidence.
