Armenian Leader, Facing Mass Protests, Resigns

The man who has led Armenia for the past decade announced his resignation Monday, bowing to pressure from tens of thousands of demonstrators who had taken to the streets and paralyzed the capital, Yerevan, to protest recent maneuvers to keep him in power.

The leader, Serzh Sargsyan, served as president for 10 years, until term limits forced him to step down this month. But Parliament, controlled by his right-wing Republican Party, transferred most of the president’s powers to the prime minister’s office, and last week it voted to appoint Sargsyan prime minister.

Beginning April 13, protesters swarmed daily around the government offices in Yerevan, denouncing what they said was an unethical power grab and government corruption.

With Sargsyan’s political allies still firmly in control of government, it is not clear how much will change with his departure from office.

In a statement posted on his official website Monday afternoon, Sargsyan, 63, said he was addressing the nation “for the last time as head of state.”

“I leave the post of the prime minister,” he wrote.

Perhaps the most striking part of the statement was a reference to Nikol Pashinyan, an opposition politician who has led the protests.

“Nikol Pashinyan was right,” Sargsyan wrote. “I was wrong.”

The strategy of leaving the presidency because of term limits and taking a newly robust prime minister’s office was employed by Vladimir Putin of Russia in 2008. He then returned to the presidency in 2012.

Armenia, formerly a part of the Soviet Union, declared independence in 1991.