YEREVAN -- Armenia's parliament has voted against Nikol Pashinian as the country's next prime minister in a narrow 55-to-45 vote, prompting him to call on supporters to stage a general strike starting on May 2.
The vote at a special session of parliament on May 1 came shortly after Vahram Baghdasarian, parliamentary faction leader of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK), announced that his party would vote against Pashinian.
Pashinian responded to the vote by calling on citizens across the country to join a general strike beginning at 8:15 a.m. on May 2 and strengthen his negotiating position on opposition demands that he be appointed as the next prime minister.
Speaking to tens of thousands of supporters gathered at Republic Square in central Yerevan after the legislature's vote, Pashinian said all workers should stop going to their jobs and all students should stop attending their classes beginning on May 2.
He also called for protesters to continue "nonviolent, peaceful acts of civil disobedience" -- including the blocking of all roads and highways in the country and the closure of railroads and airports.
In remarks in the legislature, Pashinian said the HHK's parliamentary faction had "destroyed itself irreversibly" by "announcing war against its own people" and refusing to support his candidacy.
Under Armenia's constitution, the failure of parliament to confirm a prime minister triggers a second vote by the legislature that has been scheduled for May 8.
Baghdasarian and Pashinian both indicated that they would take part in negotiations before that vote.
If parliament on May 8 fails again to confirm a prime minister, the legislature would automatically be dissolved and early general elections would be scheduled with the Republican-led acting government in charge of the electoral process.
Pashinian insists that only an interim government led by a "people's candidate" -- himself -- can organize and conduct parliamentary elections that are free, fair, and transparent.
Pashinian led more than two weeks of antigovernment protests that forced Republican leader Serzh Sarkisian to step down as prime minister after he had served as president for a decade.
Term limits forced him to leave, but lawmakers quickly elected him as prime minister in April, a move that came after legal changes that weakened the presidency's power while bolstering the prime minister's.
The protests brought thousands of Armenians out into the streets who complained that the new system would have allowed pro-Moscow Sarkisian to remain the former Soviet republic’s leader indefinitely.
They also accused Sarkisian and his HHK of widespread corruption and failing to raise living standards.
The May 1 vote in parliament was assailed by angry shouts and waving fists from tens of thousands of people who stood in central Yerevan's Republic Square throughout the day watching the parliamentary proceedings on a large screen television.
The 42-year-old Pashinian was the only candidate in the May 1 vote. He secured the support of all opposition factions in the 105-seat parliament, but the HHK controls a majority of 58 seats.
Speaking to lawmakers ahead of the vote, Pashinian said "the Republican Party's attempts at thwarting this ballot will start a political tsunami."
In the run-up to the vote, the HHK had said it would not hinder the election of Pashinian if the other factions in parliament supported his candidacy.
But parliament deputy speaker and HHK spokesman Eduard Sharmazanov said on May 1 that he was not pleased with what he heard in a meeting with Pashinian a day earlier.
"Given the meeting we had yesterday, I am sure Mr. Pashinian cannot be the prime minister," Sharmazanov told reporters on May 1.
Pashinian’s Yelk faction has nine seats in the 105-seat parliament. The Tsarukian Alliance has 31 seats and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) has seven. But to be elected, Pashinian needed at least 53 votes.
Pashinian said that he sees fresh parliamentary elections as the way forward once a new government is formed.
"It would be necessary to hold an early parliamentary election after an interim government is formed. Mechanisms of the early election should be devised as soon as possible. This election is unavoidable. It would be the final stage of the people's victory," he said.
