Armenian PM Hovik Abrahamyan resigns after weeks of unrest

Experts say the new government is likely to be temporary and the final configuration will emerge only after the parliamentary election of 2017 and the end of Sarksyan’s second term in 2018, when the full transition from the semi-presidential form of government to a parliamentary republic will be completed.

“We need a new approach, new start”.

After several high-level positions in government and chairman of the National Assembly, he became prime minister in April 2014.

Abrahamyan started his political career in 1995 when he was elected as a member of the National Assembly.

That Armenians would endorse such violent means of dissent demonstrates their disenchantment with the administration of President Sargsyan, with the government’s handling of the Nagorno-Karabakh issue just one of a long roster of grievances.

Abrahamian at the same time defended his government’s track record, saying that economic growth in Armenia has accelerated in the last 18 months despite a recession in Russian Federation and the resulting sharp drops in remittances from Armenian migrant workers. For 2016, the government expects the economic growth to plunge even further to 2.2 percent.

The most serious internal unrest in many years broke out in July when a group of ultra-nationalists and Karabakh war veterans invaded a police station in the capital, killing two police officers and holding others hostage until they eventually surrendered.

Armenia, a country of 3.2 million people, depends heavily on aid and investment from former Soviet overlord Russian Federation, whose economic downturn has hit Armenian exports and much-needed remittances from Armenians working there.

The fall of Abrahamyan’s government was expected after stories circulated in local media Wednesday that he would soon be replaced by Karen Karapetyan, a Gazprom executive and former mayor of Yerevan. He is now deputy CEO of Russian gas producer Gazprom’s Mezhregiongaz unit.