YEREVAN (Azatutyun) — An archbishop leading ongoing anti-government protests vowed to keep trying to oust Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan as he addressed thousands of supporters who again rallied in Yerevan on Sunday, May 12.
Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan insisted that his protest movement sparked by Pashinyan’s decision to cede territory to Azerbaijan is “little by little” getting closer to a parliamentary vote of no confidence in Armenia’s government. He labeled Pashinyan as a liar who has led the country to ruin and is unable to deal with its serious challenges.
“I am out fighting today because we live at a time of stolen joy and infamy when a wonderful section of our homeland, our beloved Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), is lost, when all the borders of our homeland are in danger and when we are stuck in an environment of lies and hatred,” Galstanyan told the crowd.
“We need a new government, a government of the people, a caring, suffering government, a government of reconciliation,” he said one week after deciding to take protests against the territorial concessions to Azerbaijan from the affected border villages in Armenia’s northern Tavush province to Yerevan.
The opposition Hayastan and Pativ Unem blocs represented in the Armenian parliament pledged to jointly attempt a no-confidence vote when the protests reached the capital on Thursday. They control only 35 seats in the 107-member National Assembly, lacking a single vote to formally put a motion of censure. That vote could potentially come from Ishkhan Zakarian, a nominally independent deputy who defected from Pativ Unem in 2022. Galstanyan said that in recent days he twice met with Zakarian and that the latter “didn’t refuse to join this process.”
More importantly, the opposition would also have to win over at least 18 other deputies representing Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party. Senior Civil Contract lawmakers have expressed confidence that none of their pro-government colleagues will break ranks to vote against Pashinyan. They made a point of reaffirming their allegiance to the prime minister on social media after Galstanyan attracted tens of thousands of people to Yerevan’s central Republic Square on Thursday.
