Billionaire and opposition leader Samvel Karapetian dismissed on Tuesday Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s implicit threats to force snap parliamentary elections if the Armenian opposition blocks a change of Armenia’s constitution demanded by Azerbaijan.
“There won’t be pre-term elections,” Karapetian told reporters. “We would only be happy if there were … We would run and win them.”
A new constitution drafted by Pashinian’s government early this year has to be approved by at least two-thirds of the parliament’s deputies before it can be put on a referendum. The ruling Civil Contract party fell short of such a majority in disputed parliamentary elections held on June 7. Pashinian said on Thursday that he may call another election soon if he fails to “convince” the two opposition groups represented in the National Assembly to back the still unpublicized draft.
Both groups again ruled out such a possibility on Friday. One of them, the Strong Armenia alliance, is headed by Karapetian.
“[Azerbaijani President Ilham] Aliyev must not decide whether our country’s constitution must be changed or not,” Narek Karapetian, the tycoon’s nephew and Strong Armenia’s parliamentary leader, told the press.
Nevertheless, the parliament’s pro-government speaker, Ruben Rubinian, suggested on Tuesday that the opposition may change its mind after seeing the text of the proposed constitution.
“Perhaps reason will prevail in the minds of our opposition colleagues and they will realize that what they are doing is illogical,” he said.
According to another lawmaker representing the ruling Civil Contract party, Hasmik Hakobian, fresh elections is “one of the options” considered by the country’s leadership.
“Once the draft reaches parliament and the [opposition] parliamentarians review it, express their opinions and vote against sending it to a referendum, we will say which of our potential plans we have decided to implement,” said Hakobian.
Azerbaijan says a change of the current Armenia constitution is a necessary condition for its signing of an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty initialed in Washington last year. While rejecting this precondition, Pashinian has pledged to try to enact such a change.