Armenian parliament speaker rules out constitutional transition to semi-presidential government

The political plan to launch constitutional reforms is high on the Armenian parliament's agenda which doesn't, however, propose large-scale changes to make a transition to the semi-presidential model possible, the speaker of the National Assembly said today.

''I do not support a return to the presidential system. What I think instead is we need to move ahead with the existing parliamentary system to make it maximum accomplished,'' Ararat Mirzoyan told reporters in parliament.

He added that they are currently clarifying also the framework of future activities.

Meantime Mirzoyan admitted that the latest constitutional amendments (adopted in the wake of the 2015 referendum) revealed a lot of shortcomings over the past period.

Asked to comment on a possible plan to revise the presidential authority, Mirzoyan said they are considering reforms to the electoral legislation in general. ''The revision of the Electoral Code is also part of the agenda,'' he added.

Armenia's first Constitution since independence – adopted in 1995 – established a full-fledged presidential administration in the country. The subsequent amendments – initiated in 2005 – changed that model to make the system semi-presidential. The 2015 reforms, eventually enacted in 2018 (after the completion of the third president's second term in office), paved the way to a full parliamentary government.

On February 16, first President Levon Ter-Petrosyan's Armenian National Congress (ANC) party issued a statement urging the incumbent authorities to initiate a new nationwide referendum within a year "to make for a return to the semi-presidential model".