The power in Armenia belongs to the people: Pashinyan

Acting Prime Minsiter Nikol Pashinyan’s address over Constiution Day

Dear compatriots,
Dear people,

Congratulations to all of us on the occasion of July 5 – Constitution Day. We are celebrating the July 5, 2021 in a completely new environment: we have ensured full compliance with the unchangeable Article 2 of the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia, which provides that the state power in the Republic of Armenia belongs to the people and the people exercise their power through free elections.

The early parliamentary elections of June 20, 2021 showed that following several decades of continued struggle, this constitutional provision is now irreversibly enforced in Armenia. Every citizen of the Republic of Armenia sees and knows that he is a decisive force, as provided by the Constitution of our country.

Thus, the early parliamentary elections showed that fundamental changes have taken place in our constitutional consciousness over the past three years, and for the first time in the history of the Third Republic, elections became a way to overcome the internal political crisis, and not provoke it. This creates preconditions for our mission to create a constitutional reality with new impetus.

The essence of our further action is set out in the Preamble and in Article 1 of the Constitution of our country. We must bring together and mobilize the pan-Armenian potential to build a sovereign, democratic, social and rule of law-based Republic of Armenia, and unification should take place according to the people’s will, and not against it.

Our priorities shall be structured around the agenda of external and constitutional security, around the reform of our state institutions, which should serve these agendas.

The proper implementation of these programs will help us create legal, social, educational and infrastructural conditions to promote human development; we must spare no effort to advance this agenda in order to ensure Armenia’s security, power, freedom, happiness, raise the people’s living standards.

During this period, we will not be able to avoid discussing the reform of our country’s governance system, but even in this important issue we should be guided by the principle of “Score twice before you cut once.”

Dear compatriots,
Dear people,

I bow to the memory of our brothers and sisters who gave their lives for the sake of the Motherland, for the sake of our sovereign statehood. I congratulate all of us on Constitution Day.