Two years ago, I never could have imagined that Nikol Pashinyan might try to reproduce the governments of Serzh Sargsyan and Robert Kocharyan.
But times have changed. Even in my worst nightmares, I couldn’t have imagined two years ago that we would have lost 70 percent of Artsakh, and we would have had thousands of casualties and refugees. And since Pashinyan does not consider himself to be at fault for all of this, nor is he resigning or leaving politics, that gives me a basis to conclude that maintaining power is his main goal.
Let’s briefly remember the instances in which it is possible to reproduce a government.
- The administrative resource is utilized;
- The police, National Security Service, Special Investigative Service, the Investigative Service, and the prosecutor are all in the authorities’ hands, and they obey the leader’s political orders (recently, the Prime Minister expressed his dissatisfaction at the fact that the courts are not in his hands, but that will “change” in the next few months).
- The oligarchs are serving the government with their resources.
- The majority of deputies carry out the leader’s orders without question. The My Step deputies’ rapid changes can be seen as a side effect of that. All of that existed during Serzh’s administration, and it all exists now regardless of what the government’s propagandists do.
All of this allows me to believe that, if Pashinyan were to remain Prime Minister and snap elections were to be held in these conditions, then the current Prime Minister would turn into ‘Serzh Sargsyan’ or ‘Robert Kocharyan’ in a political sense. In the case of these meaningless and pretend elections, pocket ‘opposition’ parties will be established. Their leaders will not be able to resist the possibility of having 10-20 deputies in parliament. They will act as statisticians in that performance in case My Step has a ‘stable majority.’
Read also
The government has never changed in Armenia as a result of elections. A palatial revolution was organized in 1998, and the elections after that simply recognized the de facto regime change. A revolution took place in 2018 in Armenia, and the elections of December 9th that year were simply a technical event, which recognized Pashinyan’s government. Based on this experience, it is possible to conclude that the current Prime Minister can be removed from power through two means:
- If law enforcement structures betray him and they come to power through a revolution,
- If a second Nikol comes forth on Facebook or in the streets who will instill hatred against the first Nikol, and hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets, which would force the first Nikol to resign.
Both of these scenarios are less acceptable to me than maintaining the status quo for two reasons:
- They will destabilize the already dangerous situation,
- Nothing will change within the state institutions in terms of their principles, just as nothing changed when Pashinyan replaced Serzh Sargsyan.
Therefore, if Pashinyan will hold snap elections, it would be better to not have any at all. There is no need to play on people’s emotions for nothing.
Aram Abrahamyan
