“A nationwide strike and a boycott of university classes in Armenia is declared starting from 12 a.m. on Tuesday,” said Ishkhan Saghatelian, one of the leaders of a coalition of 16 opposition parties that launched the protests following Armenia’s defeat in the war with Azerbaijan.
“The whole country must be paralyzed so that this scarecrow resigns as soon as possible,” Saghatelian told opposition supporters that again marched through the city center.
He said that Tuesday will be “the most decisive day” of the opposition push to oust Pashinian and install an interim government tasked with holding fresh parliamentary elections within a year.
The opposition forces hold Pashinian responsible for the Armenian side’s defeat in the war and say he is not capable of confronting new security challenges facing Armenia. Their demands for his resignation and the formation of an interim government have been backed by President Armen Sarkissian, the Armenian Apostolic Church and prominent public figures in Armenia and its worldwide Diaspora.
Pashinian again rejected these demands when he spoke to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Wednesday. He reiterated that he still has a popular mandate to govern the country and that the opposition wants to “wrest power from the people.”