Opposition Protests Resume as Pashinyan Ignores Ultimatum to Resign

Simonyan also scoffed at opposition calls for the fresh elections to be held within a year. “Why one year later? Let’s hold the elections now,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.

Asked why the ruling political team is not calling such a vote, Simonyan said: “Because there is no decision regarding it. I personally do not exclude it.”

President Armen Sarkissian, the Armenian Apostolic Church and a growing number of public figures have also called for the formation of an interim government and conduct of fresh elections. Sarkissian insisted late last week that Armenia is in a “deep crisis.”

Former President Levon Ter-Petrosian added his voice to calls for Pashinyan’s resignation while condemning what he called opposition threats of a violent overthrow of Armenia’s government.

In a weekend article posted on ilur.am, Ter-Petrosian said that both Pashinyan and opposition groups holding anti-government protests are putting the country at risk of “civil war” with their radical stances.

Manukyan, whom the opposition forces want to take over as a caretaker prime minister, said Pashinyan should “realize that the sooner he willingly resigns the better it will be for him.” “If this movement does not win, furious people will rip him apart,” he warned before thousands of opposition supporters marched to the prime minister’s residence guarded by security forces.

Ter-Petrosian said Manukyan’s speech amounted to a threat of violent regime change. He claimed that the radical opposition also demonstrated its “readiness for violence” by rallying supporters outside the government compound where Pashinyan lives with his family.

The 75-year-old, who served as Armenia’s first president from 1991-1998, also hit out at Pashinyan, saying that the latter is ready for “any confrontation” to cling to power in the wake of the war in Nagorno-Karabakh stopped by a Russian-brokered ceasefire on November 10.

“Given the shameful and humiliating defeat inflicted on Armenia and Artsakh, Pashinyan’s regime must definitely and immediately resign,” he said. “Not through internal clashes but a solely constitutional path … I am therefore calling on the people not to participate in mass unrest provoked by both the current government and the opposition.”

Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II, the supreme head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, on December 8 added his voice to mounting calls for Pashinyan’s resignation and snap parliamentary elections.

In a televised address to the nation, he said Pashinyan lacks popular trust after the “disastrous” war in Nagorno-Karabakh and should step down to prevent violent unrest and end what he called a “deep political crisis” in Armenia. He said he made this clear at a face-to-face meeting with the embattled premier.

Karekin also called on the Armenian parliament dominated by Pashinyan’s allies to “elect a new prime minister and form an interim government of national unity.”

“Only a government trusted by the public and made up of professionals can settle issues facing our people, restore national unity and solidarity, and organize pre-term parliamentary elections representing an undisputed necessity,” he said.