Armenian President Armen Sarkissian resigned

Armenian President Armen Sarkissian has announced that he is leaving his post.

“I thought for a very long time, and after almost four years of active work, I decided to resign from the post of President of Armenia. This is absolutely not an emotional decision, which proceeds from a certain logic,” he said in a statement published on the website of the President of Armenia.

According to Sargsyan, he does not have constitutional instruments to "influence the fundamental processes of domestic and foreign policy, issues of war or peace" in a difficult period for the country.

We have a paradoxical situation where the president has to be the guarantor of statehood, in fact, having no real tools. We live in a unique reality, a reality in which the president cannot influence matters of war or peace. It cannot veto laws that it considers inappropriate for the state and the people (quote from Kommersant ) .

At the same time, Kommersant notes that, in reality, the resignation may be related to the aggravated disagreements between Sargsyan and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. “The general background of the relationship between the president and the ruling party was unfavorable <…> President Sarkissian was actually the only figure who came to the elite with the previous government and still retained his positions,” Alexander Iskandaryan, director of the Yerevan Caucasus Institute, told the publication.

• Armen Sarkissian was elected President by the Armenian Parliament in the spring of 2018. Soon, a revolution took place in the country, as a result of which the current Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan came to power.
• Armenia has a parliamentary form of government, so the president has only representative powers. According to the Constitution, he is elected for a term of seven years. Early presidential elections in the country may be held in mid-February.