Police took up positions in the center of the Armenian capital on Wednesday to monitor a protest against the ruling elite as the acting prime minister suggested new parliamentary elections to defuse the political crisis.
“The fight is not over!,” said 21-year-old Susana Adamyan, one of the demonstrators, who was clutching a placard calling on people to take a stand as policemen looked on.
Though protests have so far been peaceful, the sudden upheaval has threatened to destabilize Armenia, a Russian ally in a volatile region riven by its decades-long, low-level conflict with Azerbaijan.
Moscow, which has two military bases in Armenia, is closely watching events.
The crisis has seen tens of thousands of people take to the streets in anti-government protests in the last two weeks and looked to have peaked on Monday when Serzh Sarksyan, the object of protesters’ fury, resigned as prime minister.
Demonstrators, led by opposition leader Nikol Pashinyan, had accused Sarksyan of manipulating the constitution to cling to power and crowds wildly celebrated after he quit.
Pashinyan had been due to hold talks today with Karen Karapetyan, the acting prime minister, to decide on the next steps.
Those talks were canceled after the two sides failed to agree an agenda however and Pashinyan declared late on Tuesday he was ready to become the people’s prime minister.
