Yerevan /Mediamax/. The executive board of Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) has issued a statement, which describes the referendum scheduled for April 5 as “unconstitutional, illegal and anti-democratic”.

“The entire initiative, from content to procedural aspect, grossly violates the Constitution of Armenia and the Law on regulations of the National Assembly. In terms of the political context, it has nothing to do with building a rule-of-law state and strengthening democracy.

The only objective of this adventure is to have an obedient Constitutional Court, which not only solves none of the real issues the Armenian citizens are facing, but also can be considered another step aimed at destroying statehood.

The agenda of the referendum is destructive. It is a way to distract the people from more important issues and to hide the government’s failures.

Given the abovementioned and our unwillingness to participate in Nikol Pashinyan and his team’s yet another attempt to split the society, we have decided not to participate in the campaigns ahead of this unconstitutional referendum in any way.

We are saddened to point out that the reaction of the international community shows that this process is unbecoming of a member of the Council of Europe and damaging for the global reputation of Armenia, which will have dire consequences for promotion of Armenia’s national agenda, including in the context of aggravating challenges in the region, and will weaken Armenia’s position in Karabakh peace talks,” the RPA statement reads.