New movement pushes Armenian MPs to impeach Pashinyan

Members of the newly formed We Are Awake movement have submitted letters to all 107 MPs of the Armenian Parliament urging them to launch impeachment proceedings against Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, vowing to launch street protests to secure his removal.

Despite repeated attempts to do so, the Armenian opposition has failed to topple Pashinyan since he came to power in 2018 during the Velvet Revolution.

Several such anti-government movements were launched in the aftermath of Armenia’s defeat in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War of 2020.

The We Are Awake movement, consisting of opposition activists, stated that they expect the MPs to launch impeachment proceedings within 10 days.

The letters contained a draft decision of Pashinyan’s impeachment, as well as its justifications, including an accusation that Pashinyan’s government had not implemented its 2021–2026 programme.

In a press briefing prior to submitting the letters, one of the leaders of the movement, former diplomat Edgar Ghazaryan, noted that they were not naming their own candidate to replace Pashinyan.

‘Because the candidate for prime minister can be decided by the MP who will author this initiative’, Ghazaryan said.

The We Are Awake campaign came shortly after Armenia’s third president, Serzh Sargsyan, declared on 24 April that they had a plan to topple Pashinyan ahead of the 2026 Parliamentary elections.

Before that, the head of the opposition I have Honour faction and a member of Sergsyan’s Republican party, Hayk Mamijanyan, hinted at the initiative to impeach Pashinyan, albeit without revealing the name of the movement.

Mamijanyan, in an interview with 168.am, stated that his party considered impeachment ‘the most effective, most logical, and most feasible’ plan to remove Pashinyan. He additionally noted that his party had ‘no plans to nominate a candidate at this time’.

On Monday, Narek Malyan, another member of the movement, echoed Mamijanyan’s remarks, stating at a press briefing that impeachment ‘is currently the only possible option for implementing a change of power in Armenia’.

He claimed that among the ruling Civil Contract party, there were MPs ‘interested in’ the impeachment.

Malyan also laid out a roadmap for their movement. Following the submission of the letters, he said they would initiate ‘consultative’ meetings with Armenia’s three former presidents — Levon Ter-Petrosyan, Robert Kocharyan, Serzh Sargsyan — as well as the Armenian Revolutionary Federation party, and Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan. Galstanyan led the major anti-demarcation Tavush for Motherland movement’s (later renamed Holy Struggle) anti-government protests.

Members of We Are Awake vowed to launch parallel street protests upon the initiation of the impeachment process in order to secure the prime minister’s removal from office.

However, the opposition, currently holding 34 seats in parliament, is two MPs short of being able to submit a motion of no confidence in Pashinyan’s government. Moreover, at least 54 MPs must vote in favour of the motion for it to be adopted.

Anna Grigoryan from the opposition Armenia Alliance faction told 24News that they were not against the impeachment, however, they would express their position after reading and discussing the letters sent to them by the movement.

At the same time, Grigoryan stated that she considered the impeachment to be the last point of the entire process, and was sceptical about the movement’s ability to mobilise a large number of protesters to pressure parliament to impeach Pashinyan.

Ruling party MP Hasmik Hakobyan expressed confidence that the attempt would fail.

‘This process initiated by Narek Malyan and Edgar Ghazaryan is largely a litmus test to show that the opposition does not have an impeachment agenda, and that there is no need to impeach Nikol Pashinyan, and there is no response even from the parliament’, Hakobyan told RFE/RL.

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