Page 20 - bne_newspaper_April_20_2018

Eurasia
April 20, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 20
Furious protests in Armenia as Sargsyan sworn in as prime minister
Carmen Valache in Berlin
With 77 votes in favour and 17 against, the Ar- menian parliament voted on April 17 for former president Serzh Sargsyan to become the country's next prime minister. The vote took place against a backdrop of mass protests in the capital Yerevan and the largest cities, which saw tens of thou- sands of Armenians rallying against Sargsyan's continued rule. The demonstrations are now into their sixth day.
Sargsyan served two terms as president between 2008 and 2018 and has been accused of per- petrating a culture of corruption and economic mismanagement in the impoverished country of 2.9mn people. Upon the ruling Republican Party's proposal, the country changed its constitution in 2016 to become a parliamentary, rather than a presidential, republic. In the past, Sargsyan has said he had no intention of becoming PM after stepping down from the presidency. Protesters, furious at his “power grab”, have been chanting "Serzh the liar".
With the presidency now reduced to a largely ceremonial role, Sargsyan is poised to remain the most powerful politician in Armenia for at least another four years, at least until the next parlia- mentary elections. Given that there is no stated term limit for the office of prime minister, and seeing how Sargsyan is the chairman of a party that has been in power for over two decades, his rule could in theory extend for much longer.
In response to Sargsyan's bid to remain the most powerful leader in the country, thousands of pro- testers took to the streets in Yerevan from
Protest organiser and Civil Contract party leader Nikol Pashanian addresses the media near the parliament in Yerevan.
April 13, threatening to remain there until the parliamentary vote on April 17 and to block ac- cess to the parliament building. Some 46 were injured in clashes between the riot police and demonstrators on April 16, according to a state- ment by the health ministry. The crowds grew to the tens of thousands and the rallies expanded from Yerevan to other large cities in Armenia, like Gyumri and Vanadzor.
The organiser of this week's demonstrations, Nikol Pashanian, the MP who leads the Civil Contract party, has called the movement a "non- violent velvet revolution" and has urged people
to continue the peaceful demonstrations in order to force the government to resign. Pashanian, who has been mostly on the streets since April
13 rallying demonstrators and who was injured in confrontations with the police, told protesters on April 17: "Something unprecedented is happening in Armenia: the same person wants to become the country's leader for a third time. We cannot let this happen [...] The time has come to liberate Armenia's citizens. With this minor inconvenience we are trying to save you from a greater inconven- ience called Serzh Sargsyan."
"We must paralyse the entire state system and the power should pass to the people," Pashanian also told protesters in Yerevan. "Serzh Sargsyan must see that he has no Armenia to rule in and no people to rule over," he declared.
Meanwhile, from his own podium, Sargsyan ac- cepted the parliament's vote, saying: "I am stand- ing here today as a leader of the party which can