They also said they are undaunted by Pashinian’s implicit threats to force snap parliamentary elections in the likely event of his failure to push the draft constitution through the National Assembly.
The still unpublicized draft 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 our opposition colleagues.”
“We are ready [for a fresh election,]” Narek Karapetian, the parliamentary leader of the Strong Armenia alliance wrote the next morning. “Just tell us the date. People must raise their voices against your endless concessions.”
“[Azerbaijani President Ilham] Aliyev must not decide whether our country’s constitution must be changed or not,” he told journalists later in the day.
Karapetian insisted that the opposition alliance led by his billionaire uncle Samvel will not change its stance even if the authorities arrest more of its members and supporters in the coming weeks or months.
Anna Grigorian, who leads the parliamentary group of former President Robert Kocharian’s Hayastan alliance, accused Pashinian of “blackmailing” the opposition.
“I want to make clear that Hayastan will not succumb to that blackmail,” Grigorian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “Does he [Pashinian] think we could vote for Aliyev’s constitution for the sake of retaining our parliament seats? Never.”
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.
A senior member of Pashinian’s Civil Contract party, deputy parliament speaker Vahagn Aleksanian, declined to comment on the likelihood of the snap election. He said it could be discussed only after the parliament votes on the draft constitution which is expected to be presented to it later this year.
Tigran Abrahamian, a lawmaker representing Strong Armenia, said Karapetian’s bloc looks forward to such fresh polls because it believes Civil Contract would lose them. Grigorian was more cautious in that regard.
“We must honestly admit that the opposition was weakened in the post-election period given its failure to achieve its main goal and the arrests of opposition leaders,” she said. “But this doesn’t mean the opposition should sit idly by. We must be prepared for all scenarios.”