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Commission on Constitutional Reforms under Armenian President are fundamental draft amendments awaited by the people, MP of ‘Republican Party of Armenia’ (RPA) faction Ms. Karine Achemyan told a press conference today.

“I do not share the opinion that the people did wait for the draft. We all awaited it because this will ensure an improvement of the political field,” she said, noting as praiseworthy that fact that the amendments were drafted by well-known experts on constitutional law.

For his part, the head of Armenian Institute of International Security Affairs, political analyst Stepan Safaryan said when commenting on constitutional reforms in Armenia that he supports a switch to a parliamentary model of government in Armenia, but the same cannot be said now about the draft new Constitution of Armenia.

“I was never among the supporters of the current Constitution - this documents has quite serious shortcomings. But these shortcomings are not eliminated in the proposed draft as well,” he noted.

As regards the draft-proposed switch to a parliamentary model of government, he said that it will enable to set up a multi-party system of government.

As was reported, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan submitted on August 21 the draft amendments in the Constitution of Armenia to the National Assembly. The draft amendments had been developed by the Commission on Constitutional Reforms under Armenian President. Vardan Poghosyan, a member of the Commission, has been appointed as official representative of Armenian President for presentation of the draft amendments to the Constitution in the National Assembly of Armenia. This week Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan plans to begin consultations with representatives of political parties regarding the approaches stated in the draft Constitution. The head of state also instructed the Commission on Constitutional Reforms under Armenian President to continue the dialog with the Venice Commission (VC) over those issues indicated in the VC’s preliminary opinion, around which no agreed solutions have been found so far.