 On 21 February, two members of the Central Election Commission who are representatives of the opposition said that they did not accept the results, and on the next day, Vahan Hovhannisian resigned from his position as deputy speaker of National Assembly of Armenia due to his disapproval of the handling of the election and said that the mechanism of falsifications were put in operation in 1996 by Ter-Petrosyan.Protests continued on 22 February, and Deputy Prosecutor-General Gagik Jhangirian condemned the election, urging the people to act immediately to defend their votes, rather than complaining later about the government's behavior.A spokesperson for Prosecutor-General Aghvan Hovsepian asked Kocharyan to dismiss Jhangirian because prosecutors cannot be members of any party or to be involved in politics in any way The Defense Ministry denied Ter-Petrosyan's claim that the two deputy defense ministers had said that they would prevent the army from being used against the protesters, but the veterans' group Yerkrapah disputed this denial.