The Armenian President, Armen Sarkissian, announced on Sunday January 24 his resignation from this essentially ceremonial post, citing his inability to act on the political life of his country in these “difficult times”.
“This is not an emotion-driven decision and it stems from a specific logic”explained Mr. Sarkissian in a press release posted on his official website. “The president lacks the tools to influence important foreign and domestic policy processes in difficult times for the people and the country”he added, with executive power largely concentrated in the hands of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.
In office since April 2018, Armen Sarkissian, 68, has been at the center of a political crisis following Armenia’s 2020 defeat in a war with neighbor and longtime rival Azerbaijan. , for control of the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
MM. Sarkissian and Pashinian disagreed on the decision to dismiss the army chief of staff in the aftermath of the conflict between these two former Soviet republics in the Caucasus which killed more than 6,500 people in September 2020. “I hope that the changes in the Constitution will eventually be implemented and that the next president and the presidential administration will be able to operate in a more balanced environment”can we still read in the press release.
Armen Sarkissian served briefly as the country’s prime minister in 1996-97, before being elected president in March 2018.
Three years after the “velvet revolution”, the country is in the grip of an economic as well as a political crisis, far from the immense hope generated by this popular uprising which had brought Nikol Pashinian to the head of the government.