The biggest challenge after the revolution was to make sure that people understood that what happened was a reality. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan spoke about this when he met with the Armenian community in New York.
“As strange as it may seem, not everyone accepts that it was a reality. For example, I don’t understand how there can be a state official in the Republic of Armenia after all these events and after all these political changes who thinks that they can accept bribes and allow something illegal to take place. That is the most surprising thing for me and I can’t find the answer to it. An official is arrested every week for something relating to bribery, and I don’t understand their logic. Don’t those people watch television? Don’t they read the news? Are those people from Armenia at all?”
According to Pashinyan, “People think that there will be other people instead of Serzh Sargsyan, perhaps more… In the beginning, there were people who said ‘Is this what we had a revolution for?’ People break traffic laws and are fined, then they ask, ‘Is this what we had a revolution for?’ Someone who steals and is caught will ask, ‘Is this what we had a revolution for?’ Someone who accepts a bribe and is caught will ask, ‘Is this what we had a revolution for?’ Some people’s understanding of the revolution is that, since they were unable to become officials in the past and help to make their friends and relatives become officials too, they now will be able to do it since a revolution took place.”
Lusine Budaghyan
