No matter how hard I try to spare my nerves and avoid the images and videos from Civil Contract’s “internal campaign”, they keep “sprouting” before my eyes as I scroll through social media—most likely as sponsored content. And so I am forced to look at the aesthetically unpleasant photos of Civil Contract members eating, as well as footage of meetings between the “common people” and their “king.”
It is clear that Nikol Pashinyan’s propaganda targets a mass audience of a certain intellectual level, and it is mostly representatives of that very audience who meet the government’s campaign teams. Whether these encounters are spontaneous or staged in advance is not particularly important in this case. But in those scenes of “glorifying the leader,” I sense a certain artificiality and a mutual lack of understanding.
I do not know what advice Pashinyan receives from those in the European Union who send millions to support his political reproduction, but the “king–people” performance does not seem to be hitting the target—at least for now. It is one thing when a “hero” and “savior” emerges from the street and declares: “People, I have come to save you from the looting, wealthy, arrogant rulers.” It is quite another when the country’s prime minister arrives with twenty luxury escort cars, several dozen bodyguards, and a group of obsequious courtiers—who are just as spoiled as the previous elites, if not more so.
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Thus, the myth of the “looters” will no longer work with the same effectiveness. A different narrative is needed. At first glance, it might seem that the fairy tale of “hybrid warfare”—which, apparently, the European Union is suggesting to Pashinyan as a trump card—should replace the story about the “looters.” And perhaps there is a calculation that this “hybrid” label could be attached to figures like Samvel Karapetyan and Gagik Tsarukyan.
But the “hybrid” theme cannot compete with the “looters” narrative. First, it is more complicated. Second, it is harder to inflame resentment—that sense of grievance and bitterness—among people through it. This is probably why the pro-Pashinyan mass, although expressing its enthusiasm, does so far more cautiously. For his part, the “hero” seeking political reproduction also appears to expect a different kind of reaction from his admirers.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
