Armenia’s Yelk bloc will do its best to prevent president Serzh Sargsyan from becoming prime minister in 2018, RFE/RL Armenian Service cited the bloc MP, former PM Aram Sargsyan as saying on Wednesday, June 28.

If need be, the lawmaker said, Yelk is ready to mobilize the people to overturn president Sargsyan’s plan.

Sargsyan’s term as president ends in 2018 when Armenia will be making a full transition to a parliamentary system of governance. The Republican Party (RPA) has repeated on various occasions that current PM Karen Karapetyan will hold his office even after 2018, but opposition parties and blocs predict that president Sargsyan will become the head of the Armenian government.

The former prime minister said the people will need to take to the streets to prevent such a development, and Yelk is prepared to participate in all those actions.

According to A. Sargsyan, the society doesn’t want Armenia to resemble Kazakhstan or Azerbaijan. Should the president take that step, he said, it will be badly perceived by the international community as well.