Evaluation Note / Diana Yayloyan

On October 16^th, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan officially announced his resignation, preparing the country for extraordinary snap elections set for December 2018. According to the Armenian constitution, the parliament, or National Assembly, can vote twice to nominate a candidate for prime minister within two weeks. In case it fails to elect a new prime minister, parliament is to be dissolved and pre-term elections must be held no earlier than thirty days and no later than forty-five days.

In his appeal to the Armenian citizens, Prime Minister Pashinyan referred to the ongoing political process as “entering a new era”. Given the country’s new political reality following the ascendance of the new Pashinyan government in May 2018, the elections are inescapable and were only a matter of time. In early June during a visit to the NATO Summit in Brussels for example, the Armenian premier cited early 2019 as a possible term for snap elections. However, after a political crisis caused by the former ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA), the second largest Prosperous Party of Armenia (PPA) and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), on 2 October, after the overwhelming victory of the Pashinyan political bloc in the recent Yerevan municipal elections, early election could no longer be delayed.

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Photo credits: Narek Aleksanyan