1st LD: Armenian parliament fails to elect new prime minister

YEREVAN, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Armenia's National Assembly on Tuesday did not succeed in electing a new prime minister. The only candidate, the opposition leader and head of Civil Contract Party Nikol Pashinyan got 45 votes with 56 against his candidacy.

He had to get at least 53 votes to become a PM from 105-seats Parliament.

After the unsuccessful outcome, a new voting will be organized in 7 days. During this period new candidates can be proposed only by one-third of members of the parliament. If the second voting will result with no elected candidate, the parliament will be dismissed and snap parliamentary elections should be organized.

Following the vote in the Parliament, Pashinyan joined the rally on the Republic Square and announced that all the protests, strikes and acts of civil disobedience will effectively resume on Wednesday.

On April 23, prime minister of Armenia and leader of the ruling Republican Party, Serzh Sargsyan stepped down amid mass protests that have gripped the ex-Soviet republic. Following a referendum held in December of 2015, Armenia has effectively shifted from a semi-presidential system of governance to a parliamentary one where the prime minister's office holds most of the executive power in the country, with the president's job now being largely ceremonial.

Pashinyan, an opposition MP who is the leader of the protests that ousted former Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan, insisted that the political parties in the parliament should vote him in as the next interim PM before new snap elections. Enditem