While the National Assembly was conducting its Friday hearing to elect the fourth President of Armenia, a group of civic activist gathered outside for a protest to dispute the constitutionality of the voting.
With posters bearing the slogan ‘No to Constitution’s Misrepresentation’, the group claimed that the parliament was conducting the election in violation of the basic law of Armenia. Garik Sarukhanyan, a member of the Union for National Self-Determination, said they dispute also the legsitimacy of the 2015 constitutional referendum proposing a transition to the parliamentary government, downgrading the president’s status.
“We are attending the burial of constitutionality here, because what they are doing inside the National Assembly now is practically killing the institute of constitutionality.
So we are eye-witnessing that process in a way. In the Constitution which they have themselves written, it is plainly stateed that the a new Constitution enters into effect after the presidential election. So the people were supposed to elect the president at this stage of developments,” he told reporters.
Volodya Avetisyan, a veteran of the Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) war also attending the protest, called for an active civic campaign for achieving a government change.
“What we have in the Republic of Armenia today is a tyrannical and criminal regime everybody knows about. So those criminal authorities, which acceded to power by distributing bribes, are now illegitimately appointing a president,” he said.