“I WAS wrong. The movement on the streets is against my rule. I’m complying with their demands.” These are not words often heard from an authoritarian ruler of a former Soviet republic. But thus spake Serzh Sargsyan, who has ruled Armenia for the past decade, as he resigned on April 23rd.
Only a week earlier, he had seemed resolved to face down the protests that broke out after he was installed as prime minister on April 17th. Mr Sargsyan had exploited Armenia’s shift from presidential to parliamentary government to keep himself in power after completing his second and final presidential term.
His manoeuvre resembled that of Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, who sat out one term as prime minister in 2008 before returning as president in 2012 against a wave of protests. A similar kind of crowd, incensed by a similar kind of trickery, engulfed Armenia’s capital Yerevan. It was led by Nikol Pashinian, a journalist turned...Continue reading
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