Armen Sarkisyan becomes Armenia's 4th president

Armenia’s National Assembly chose Armen Sarkisyan as the country’s new president by a large margin.

A former prime minister who once served as the country’s ambassador to Britain, was elected to serve a seven-year term.

Ninety lawmakers voted to elect him, ten opposed his election, and none abstained, the chairman of the temporary counting committee of the parliament Gagik Melikyan said.

The victory required at least 79 votes out of 105.

According to the new version of the Constitution, Serzh Sargsyan's successor was elected not by a popular vote, but by lawmakers. His powers will be limited, as, for example, in Germany or Italy.

The ruling coalition, which consists of the Republican Party of Armenia and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, officially nominated Armen Sargsyan for president. The second largest faction in the National Assembly – the Tsarukyan bloc - said it will also support him. The Yelk party was not able to nominate a candidate - Artak Zeinalyan - they only have nine deputies in the National Assembly. The party also said that it will vote against the ruling party's candidacy.

The director of the Institute of Contemporary Economics Nikita Isayev, speaking with a correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza, noted that the new Armenian president will be just a nominal figure without any influence on the internal and foreign policy of Yerevan. "In the current political configuration, when the Republic of Armenia changed its status of a presidential republic to a so-called parliamentary republic and, in fact, is managed from the same RPA center that has not changed any basic domestic political and foreign policy approaches, the appointment of President Armen Sarkisyan will change nothing. Generally speaking, it is  similar to the situation in Georgia, where Georgy Margvelashvili was elected the new president after resignation of Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili - this is only a general picture in which President has a decorative function," he explained.

"We see that the balance of internal political forces has not changed, despite the 2016 April war and the seizure of the police station in the summer of 2016. The society was uplifted by Karen Karapetyan's appointment as chairman of the government, but later these hopes were dashed. We should not expect changes in relations with Russia under the new president, since Yerevan's contacts with Moscow have recently been frozen: Russia is actively participating in projects which do not involve Armenia, in particular, the North-South transport corridor, jointly implemented by Azerbaijan and Iran, and Armenia's political and economic dependence on Russia is declining," Nikita Isaev noted.

The member of the Armenian National Congress, Levon Zurabyan, agreed with Isayev. "We do not have any expectations from the presidency of Armen Sarkisyan, since there will be the same authoritarian dictatorial regime in Armenia. The dictator is Serzh Sargsyan, and everything else is just attempts to give this regime a human face," he stressed.

The politician added that the ANC party does not recognize these elections as legitimate. "We were against the constitutional reform, the sole purpose of which is to circumvent the legislative ban on the third term of Serzh Sargsyan's rule. We also filed an application with the Constitutional Court regarding the total falsification of the parliamentary elections held last year. We recognize neither the results of the referendum on the Constitution, nor the parliamentary elections , nor the legitimacy of the National Assembly, nor these presidential elections. Moreover, we met with Armen Sarkisyan in person and told him that we will regard him as an illegitimate president," Levon Zurabyan said.