Davit Arushanian cancelled a planned news conference at the last minute on December 17 as multiple media outlets, including those linked to the Armenian government, reported that he will be fired after just one year in office. Pashinian did not deny those reports when he spoke to journalists the next day. But he has not replaced Arushanian so far.
Breaking his weeklong silence, Arushanian said vaguely that “there has been a discussion” on his political future within the country’s political leadership.
“But no decision has been yet,” he told reporters. “So I continue to perform my duties.”
“Whether the decision will be made now, in one year or in five years, I am not worried about losing my post,” he said.
According to some Armenian media outlets, Pashinian has postponed the sacking because he has still not handpicked a new governor for Shirak. The Yerevan daily Hraparak said on Tuesday that the premier wants to replace Arushanian by a senior law-enforcement official in view of next year’s parliamentary elections.
Officials and commentators in the provincial capital Gyumri have linked Arushanian’s likely exit to a December 7 mass held by renegade clerics at the main local church as part of Pashinian’s intensifying efforts to depose Catholicos Garegin II, the supreme head of the Armenian Apostolic Church. All 29 priests of the Shirak Diocese of the church reaffirmed their allegiance to Garegin ahead of that liturgy mostly attended by Pashinian and his political allies and supporters.
Several believers chanted Garegin’s name during the service. Others berated afterwards pro-government lawmakers and bishops who arrived from Yerevan on the occasion. Hundreds of other Gyumri residents flocked to a nearby church to attend a mass led by local clergymen defying the government.
Arushanian, who is the sixth governor of Shirak appointed during Pashinian’s nearly eight-year tenure, ruled out any connection between his possible dismissal and the December 7 events. But he would not be drawn on reasons for his uncertain political future.
“I insist that none of the leaders phoned … and instructed me to assist in that liturgy,” said the 44-year-old governor affiliated with the ruling Civil Contract party.