“Since you criticize him so much, who do you see as Armenia’s leader?” people often ask me.
I see five or six candidates, whose parties have submitted applications to run in the elections—and none of them are in any way worse than Pashinyan. The current prime minister is not such a genius that he could have no alternative. On the contrary, the policies of those candidates could hardly be more disastrous than his own.
This assessment is based on the truly unprecedented events of the past seven and a half years, and especially of recent months.
Before Pashinyan came to power, we had not lost thousands of square kilometers that were under our control. No matter what the government’s propagandists and supporters say—that those territories were “occupied,” that we didn’t need them, that they were Russia’s leash, or that they had long since been “given away”—the loss of Artsakh under Pashinyan is a historical fact. Everything else is just empty talk.
On that fact alone, one can assert that Pashinyan has been Armenia’s worst leader since 1991. As for whether he is a traitor or not, insane or not, acting on foreign orders or on his own initiative—that belongs to the realm of speculation and commentary.
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But I can also state that, in terms of democracy, the regime established by Pashinyan is in no way better than those of his predecessors. On the contrary—I cannot recall a time when so many clergymen were imprisoned, including two diocesan leaders and two archbishops. I cannot recall 21 priests being summoned for interrogation on a Sunday morning, all at the same hour, so that they could not celebrate the liturgy. I cannot recall anyone being kept in detention for months merely for saying a single sentence in support of the Church. I cannot recall a time when all opposition heads of local governments were either killed or imprisoned.
So it is simply impossible to be worse than the Civil Contract Party.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
