Businessman Gagik Tsarukian’s Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) said on Friday that it has already started preparations for snap parliamentary elections expected in December.
“The BHK will definitely take part in the upcoming pre-term parliamentary elections,” said Naira Zohrabian, the party’s secretary general. “Our regional chapters have already received clear instructions from Gagik Tsarukian to start organizational works.”
“We have already started working with our regional chapters with clear instructions to get ready for the forthcoming parliamentary elections,” Zohrabian told RFE/RL’s Armenian service.
As recently as on October 2, the BHK opposed Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s efforts to force the elections in December. But it dropped those objections a few days later, after Pashinian rallied tens of thousands of angry supporters in Yerevan and fired four government ministers affiliated with Tsarukian’s party.
Under the Armenian constitution, such polls can be held only if the prime minister resigns and the parliament fails to replace him within two weeks. Tsarukian, whose party controls 31 seats in the 105-member National Assembly, pledged on Monday not to nominate or endorse any prime-ministerial candidates in case of Pashinian’s resignation.
Pashinian said afterwards that he will tender his resignation by October 16 to ensure that the fresh polls are held in the first half of December. His political team is tipped to win them by a landslide.
The popular premier’s My Step alliance won over 80 percent of the vote in municipal elections held in Yerevan on September 23. The BHK finished a distant second with just 7 percent.
In Zohrabian’s words, Tsarukian’s party has not yet decided whether to contest the parliamentary elections on its own or in an alliance with other groups.
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