A referendum on constitutional amendments is conducted in the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. Artsakh Prime Minister Ara Harutyunyan voted. After the voting, he told the journalists that at the moment of presenting his passport he recalled the day of February 20, 1988, “Certainly, we were longing to have a passport. Today, we have not only a passport but also testify with this passport that we already have an established republic, an established country, and most importantly, this country is headed to constitutional reforms aiming to further strengthen the democratic values in our country.”
Back to the statements of the international community that they will not recognize the results, Arayik Harutyunyan replied, “On 20 February 1988, we were realizing that we are going to have a lot of problems with the international community. Most importantly, we are doing these constitutional amendments primarily for us, for our people to be able to build a country where it is pleasant to live.” As mentioned by Arayik Harutyunyan, the new version of the Constitution is not inferior to the European constitution, simply it is necessary to explore it, “There is no such thing that the government is hyper-centralized on one person, you must read the Constitution.”
The NKR Prime Minister noted that the semi-presidential model has political risks, “To avoid these risks we have chosen this model. In other words, a model where the political risks should be avoided as much as possible. People must be given a bigger authority, and the government model will be changed easily with people’s choice. The current model is a semi-presidential model and does not allow it. The proposed model is very democratic, envisaging all essential conditions of parliamentarity, which has a speaker who is head of the executive body. But this does not mean that it is hyper-centralization on one person.”
