Pashinyan urges to boycott parliamentary elections under RPA

Armenia’s Acting Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan has called to hold snap parliamentary elections.

Karapetyan admitted that the leader of the Civil Contract opposition party and the head of Yelk faction in the Armenian National Assembly, Nikol Pashinyan, may secure victory in the polls.

"This is a deadlock situation. Pashinyan declares that the acting premier should be a candidate of the people, and he is the one. I asked the country’s president to seek advice of political forces and set new parliamentary polls. If Armenia’s citizens want to elect Pashinyan, he will become the prime minister," Karapetyan said.

However, Pashinyan, said that the scheme proposed by Karapetyan is not acceptable. "This scheme is unacceptable to us, but we can also boycott such elections not passively, but actively – by blocking all polling stations not to allow the Armenian Republicans to reproduce themselves," ARKA cited Pashinyan as saying.

Earlier, the opposition leader said would not back early elections unless a candidate of the people became the prime minister. On Wednesday, Pashinyan and Karapetyan are expected to launch talks. However, on Tuesday evening Pashinyan refused to hold dialogue and called to continue protests.