Nikol Pashinyan

Nikol Pashinyan, 2019

Nikol Pashinyan ( Armenian Նիկոլ Փաշինյան ; born June 1, 1975 in Ischewan , Armenian SSR , Soviet Union ) is an Armenian politician and journalist who played an important role in the 2018 revolution in Armenia . He heads the civil contract party in the party alliance of the Mein-Step-Alliance (IKD), which dominates the National Assembly with an absolute majority. As chairman of the former party alliance Jelk , which was held for the 2017 parliamentary electionhad stood for the first time, he was still the third largest parliamentary group with nine members. The Prime Minister was elected on May 8, 2018 . On October 15, 2018, he resigned to allow new elections. In the following parliamentary election on December 9th, his party alliance received 70.4 percent of the vote. On March 28, 2021, he announced his resignation as Prime Minister.

Career

Paschinjan studied journalism at the State University of Yerevan . He was unable to complete his studies because he was expelled from the university for texts critical of the government. He worked for various newspapers in the 1990s. Eventually he became editor-in-chief of the opposition newspaper Aikakan Shamanak . Criminal proceedings against Pashinyan were pending several times over reports of scandals and corruption. In the 2007 parliamentary elections , he ran for an opposition party, but was unable to win a seat. When violent clashes between police and demonstrators broke out after the 2008 presidential elections , Pashinyan was one of the organizers of the protests and was sentenced to seven years in prison. The verdict was sharply criticized by the opposition and journalists' associations.

The Armenian-born journalist Tigran Petrosyan writes that Pashinyan leads the demonstrators under the motto “fight, fight to the end”. To avoid political persecution, Pashinyan went underground. He was wanted by the police on "murder charges and mass unrest". In June 2009, he turned himself in to the police and sentenced to two years in prison. In 2011 Pashinyan was released through an amnesty .

After his release, Pashinyan formed the Civil Contract Party . He was previously a member of the Armenian National Congress from 2008 to 2012 . In the parliamentary elections in 2012 he ran again for this and was able to move into the National Assembly . In 2017 he ran with the newly founded, liberal party alliance Jelk , which received 7.8% of the votes and thus received nine seats. Pashinyan became chairman of the parliamentary group . In the same year he ran for Mayor of Yerevan and came in second with 21% of the vote.

When the former Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan was elected Prime Minister in April 2018, contrary to previous promises, Pashinyan organized nationwide protests that lasted for weeks . On April 22nd, Pashinyan and Sargsyan met, which ended after just three minutes and after which Pashinyan and the two opposition members Sasun Mikaeljan and Ararat Mirsojan were arrested. They were released the next day; shortly afterwards Sargsyan resigned and declared: “I was wrong, and Nikol Pashinyan was right.” In the course of events, Pashinyan acquired the image of the citizen-oriented “revolutionary” coming from outside the political arena. He described the process as the " Velvet Revolution ". Pashinyan became the opposition's candidate for successor as head of government, while the Republican Party , which had ruled until then, did not put up its own candidate. In the first ballot on May 1st, he did not get a majority in the National Assembly. The next day there was a general strike and traffic blockades across the country , all of which remained peaceful. In the second ballot on May 8, Pashinyan received 59 votes and 42 MPs voted against him. In doing so, he achieved the required majority.

Nikol Pashinyan (2018)

On October 16, 2018, Pashinyan resigned from his position so that the people “can express their will in early parliamentary elections”. The peaceful "velvet revolution" through which he came to power in May should be completed in this way. The new election to the National Assembly on December 9, 2018, won the party alliance Mein-Step-Allianz , for which he stood, with 70.4%.

Political positions

Nikol Pashinyan called for the fight against poverty and corruption in Armenia and for democratic reforms. He refused to retaliate against political opponents after a seizure of power, claiming that an important goal was a new election under a revised electoral law designed to prevent election fraud.

As an opposition politician, he was one of the few who refused to join the Eurasian Economic Union with Russia. In 2018, he stressed not to seek geopolitical changes; he wanted close relations with both Russia and the EU , with which Armenia is linked through the Eastern Partnership . In his party's election manifesto, an exit from the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) was considered. Left -wing observers such as Garen Yegparian and Markar Melkonian classified Pashinyan and his government as neoliberal economically. In September 2018 Paschinjan proposed a flat tax of 23% initially before on all income that should fall gradually year by 0.5 percentage points to 20%. This proposal was adopted by Parliament in June 2019 and will take effect in 2020.

He advocated lower taxes for small businesses, a reduction in the number of ministries and state agencies and tax rebates for foreign companies willing to invest. In late May 2019, Pashinyan called on his supporters to block all court buildings in Armenia after former President Robert Kocharyan , who was charged with breaking constitutional law during the 2008 protests , was released from prison. Pashinyan announced a fundamental reform of the judiciary. Leading Armenian opposition parties such as Blossoming Armenia , Shining Armenia and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation called the Prime Minister's move unconstitutional. Criticism of this decision also came from the United States , which called on the government to respect the country's constitution.

In the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with neighboring Azerbaijan , Pashinyan, unlike his predecessor, preferred a much tougher position and was basically uncompromising. At the beginning of August 2019, with his provocative statement “ Karabakh is Armenia! Point! ”At a rally in Stepanakert ( Xankəndi ) caused a sensation and, according to critics, jeopardized the already laborious negotiation process between Armenia and Azerbaijan. In Baku this statement was described as completely unacceptable. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also criticized Pashinyan for this statement, according to which it made the political solution to the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict more difficult. Contrary to his previous rhetoric, he came under political pressure in Armenia because of his approval of the de facto territorial cessions, which are painful from an Armenian point of view, as provided for in the ceasefire agreement in the Nagorno-Karabakh War of November 9, 2020 . As a result of the Azerbaijani offensive, the republic of Artsakh had initially lost a third of its territory, including traditional Armenian settlements and cities such as Hadrut , which formerly belonged to the Autonomous Oblast ; As a result of the armistice, Artsakh had to surrender another third of the area surrounding the former oblast to Azerbaijani control.

Web links

Commons : Nikol Pashinyan  - Portrait of Nikol Pashinyan

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Armenia's Prime Minister announces resignation . Der Spiegel, March 28, 2021.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} Tigran Petrosyan: Armenian dissident Pashinyan. Revolutionary with experience. In: taz.de . April 23, 2018. Retrieved May 4, 2018 . 
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Armenia's rebel with endurance qualities. Deutsche Welle , April 27, 2018, accessed May 4, 2018 . 
4. ↑ ^{a b} Imprisonment for Armenian journalists. Deutsche Welle, January 20, 2010, accessed May 4, 2018 . 
5. ↑ ^{a b} leader in revolutionary outfit. In: tagesschau.de . May 1, 2018, accessed May 4, 2018 . 
6. ↑ ^{a b c} The man of the hour. In: FAZ.net . May 1, 2018, accessed May 4, 2018 . 
7. ↑ Armenia: Parliament votes against opposition leader Pashinyan. In: spiegel.de . May 1, 2018, accessed May 5, 2018 . 
8. ↑ Election in Armenia: Pashinyan is Prime Minister. May 8, 2018, archived from the original on June 29, 2018 ; accessed on March 29, 2021 . 
9. ↑ Nikol Pashinyan: Armenian Prime Minister resigns. In: Zeit Online . October 16, 2018, accessed October 16, 2018 . 
10. ↑ Parliamentary election: Armenia's Prime Minister can continue to rule. In: Zeit Online . December 10, 2018, accessed March 29, 2021 . 
11. ↑ An interview with Armenian opposition leader Pashinyan. Euronews , April 30, 2018, accessed May 4, 2018 . 
12. ↑ Markar Melkonian : Armenia: No Organization, No Real Change. In: Hetq . May 25, 2018, accessed on March 29, 2021 (English): " The new Prime Minister's advisors and his new cabinet include new faces, but they are almost all male, and it does not look like any of them question the neoliberal boosterism that celebrates thirty years of national disaster in Free Independent Armenia. " 
13. ↑ cooking Yegparian: Revolutionary Elections? In: Asbarez . October 12, 2018, accessed on March 29, 2021 (English): “ … Armenia's current leader who seems to have drunk the neo-liberal Kool-aid when it comes to economic policy. " 
14. ↑ Suras Musayelyan: Pashinian Government Mulls Flat Income Tax. In: azatutyun.am. September 6, 2018, accessed on March 29, 2021 (English, agency report RFE / RL ).  .
15. ↑ Seda Ghukasyan: Armenia's Parliament Approves Controversial Flat Tax Bill. In: Hetq . June 25, 2019, accessed March 29, 2021 . 
16. ^ Taxes, corruption, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Turkey: Pashinyan's vision for the 'New Armenia'. December 14, 2018, accessed March 29, 2021 . 
17. ↑ Ruzanna Stepanian: Armenian opposition slams Pashinian's 'Unconstitutional' calls . In: azatutyun.am. May 20, 2019, accessed June 25, 2019 . 
18. ↑ US Urges Judicial Reform, Respect For Armenian Constitution . In: azatutyun.am. May 20, 2019, accessed June 25, 2019 . 
19. ↑ Сергей Строкань: Двух точек здесь быть не может. Война слов вызвала новую эскалацию в Карабахе . In: Kommersant.ru. October 7, 2019, Retrieved December 8, 2019 (Russian).