Armenian opposition leader Nikol Pashinyan was elected prime minister completing a remarkable rise to power backed by massive street protests that he’s termed a “velvet revolution.”
A sea of flags with red, blue, and orange colors fills the square, and taxi drivers are honking their horns and popping champagne. The atmosphere is stirring and electric!
These are ordinary people who stood up for transparent and accountable government.
It looks more like a carnival than a revolution.
Instead of burning tyres and mounting barricades, young people wrap themselves in Armenian flags, dance in the streets and block the roads by playing volleyball or simply sitting on carpets.
The nonviolent demonstrations began in April and at times paralyzed the capital, Yerevan, with road blockages, labor strikes and street dance parties.
On March 31, Mr. Pashinyan began a quixotic walk across central Armenia demanding that the ex-president steps down. Protestants were shouting slogans like duxov and take a step, reject Serj.
Pashinyan’s so-called Velvet Revolution has exercised true people power – the ability to conjure up a storm of support on request.
The movement was most remarkable for its unexpected outcome.
Pashinian’s Velvet Revolution employed acts of civil disobedience that gave Armenians a voice in the country’s peaceful transition of power, largely uniting the former Soviet republic.
In support of armenian opposition, Armenian-American rock star Serj Tankian has hailed the peaceful revolt and celebrated with Mr Pashinyan.
Tankian enjoys enormous popularity in Armenia. He is best known as the lead vocalist, songwriter of the alternative metal band System of a Down, formed in 1994.
After vowing to remake the country’s political and economic systems, Mr. Pashinyan told a cheering throng in the central Republic Square in Yerevan, the capital, that,
“Your victory is not that I was elected as prime minister of Armenia; your victory is that you decided who should be prime minister of Armenia.”
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