Armenian Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan announced about his resignation at a government meeting on September 8, RIA Novosti reports.
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Various Armenian experts and opposition members numerously pointed at the fails of Hovik Abrahamyan while he kept the position of the Prime Minister of Armenia.
The new government is reportedly likely to be temporary, with the new configuration emerging only after the 2017 parliamentary election and the end of Russian-allied President Serzh Sarkisian’s second term in 2018, when the transition from a semi-presidential form of government to a parliamentary republic is completed. “And that requires new approaches, a new start”.
An economic slowdown this year and outbreaks of violence prompted Armenia’s President Serge Sarkisian to call for a “government of national accord” in August.
In 2014, a USA -led coalition began airstrikes on Islamic State group targets, and later, sent US special forces to assist allied fighters.
A former parliamentary speaker and an economist by training, Abrahamyan was appointed prime minister two years ago. That increased its dependency on aid amid investment from Russian Federation, including remittances from Armenians working in Russian Federation, which are a badly needed source of income.
In the most recent display of dissatisfaction with the Abrahamyan administration, on July 17, protests broke out in the Armenian capital city of Yerevan in which demonstrators backed an armed group of veterans of the Nagorno-Karabakh war who attacked a police station, killing two and taking eight hostages.
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It is not clear yet who would lead the government but according to local media, Karen Karapetyan, a former mayor of Yerevan, is expected to replace Abrahamyan as the new prime minister. The stand-off led to anti-government demonstrations over the authorities’ mishandling of the crisis and demands for Sarkisian’s resignation. He also claimed credit for double-digit increases in Armenian exports shown by official statistics and said that his government has implemented key infrastructure projects in the agriculture sector that will bear fruit in the near future.
