Armenia’s former president Serzh Sargsyan has been elected a Prime Minister with 77 votes for and 17 against, speaker of the National Assembly Ara Babloyan said.
Serzh Sargsyan was nominated by the Republican Party of Armenia and ARF Dashnakustyun.
Protests have continued for few days in Yerevan and other Armenian cities aimed at preventing Sargsyan from assuming the position of prime minister. The protest has been led by leader of Armenia’s Civil Contract opposition party and lawmaker Nikol Pashinyan.
The deputy chairman of the Armenian National Congress Levon Zurabyan told Vestnik Kavkaza earlier that the previous 10 years of Serzh Sargsyan's presidency were marked by the worsening of the country's life in all spheres, and the continuation of his reign bring new problems for the republic.
"The state debt increased from $1.5 billion to $7 billion during his reign. The population decreased by 400 thousand people - and this is due to the official information only. The rate of emigration has reached about 50 thousand citizens leaving Armenia every year not just for temporary earnings, but for good," he listed.
"The clan, mafia, and noncompetitive economy have only strengthened and intensified in these 10 years, squeezing out the typical competitive business. By 2018, Armenia has received an absolutely ineffective, corrupt government that will not last long. Taking into account all that happened in Armenia during 10 years of Serzh Sargsyan's rule, people can only treat him with a negative attitude, and this is a general attitude towards him. Of course, we should note that despite this the Republican Party of Armenia received high support during the parliamentary elections, but these elections were falsified completely," Levon Zurabyan stressed.
The deputy chairman of the Armenian National Congress party Aram Manukyan pointed to Armenia's total isolation under Sargsyan's rule. "We are bypassed by all regional and international routes - transport, railway, oil, gas, any others. Armenia is not just under the political blockade, but also under the economic one, it is blocked on every side and not involved in any regional projects. Even our government does not want to participate in regional programs, that is, we simply do not exist in the Caucasus, and this situation has not changed in last 20 years," he noted.
"Over the years, we have been bypassed by a lot of projects, including the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline and the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars road, which were built through Georgia instead of Armenia, and now these are the North-South International Transport Corridor and China's Silk Road. We seem to be out of the region. De jure there is Armenia in the Caucasus, but it is not involved in any of the projects passing through the Caucasus. We are at an economic impasse, and therefore no one invests in Armenia. If before we received at least $3-4 billion of investments a year, then last year the republic received only $120 million of investments, it's nothing," Aram Manukyan assessed Sargsyan's "achievements".
