While official Baku and its friendly media sharply criticized the elections and Armenia’s new leadership, some in the country expressed optimism that the door to a peace deal may have opened, if only a crack.
The formerly ruling Republican Party is on life support, but it has provided a useful foil for Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, and sparring between the two has dominated the parliamentary election campaign.
A new party, made up of many of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s allies from the street protests that brought him to power, is challenging him from the left.
The new government is trying to dismantle connections between politics and business. But a party led by one of the country’s richest men is poised to make it into the new parliament.
The deal has raised questions of conflict of interest in a government that has made a priority of prosecuting corruption among members of the former regime.
The leaders of the organization's member states met in Astana, and they -- led by Kazakhstan's Nursultan Nazarbayev -- appeared to be leaning toward letting Belarus take over ahead of schedule.
The political opposition used the conference as a political weapon against Pashinyan, and organizers lamented the indifference of the police after they received threats.
