In June of last year, Samvel Karapetyan expressed his support for the Armenian Apostolic Church, to which Pashinyan responded with a threat: “Now you will see, scoundrel, what the state tastes like.” Immediately afterward, the pocket investigators, the prosecution, and the courts rushed to carry out the Prime Minister’s order.
As a result of this persecution, the tycoon—who until then had been engaged solely in business and philanthropy—entered politics. The repression intensified thereafter, and Karapetyan remains deprived of his liberty to this day. Was all this enough to curb the opposition movement forming around him? As we can see, it was not.
And now, seeing that political means—combined with legal arbitrariness and aggressive propaganda against his opponents—do not ensure the smooth reproduction of his power, Pashinyan is changing the Electoral Code two months before the elections so that Samvel Karapetyan’s name will not appear on the electoral list.
After that, he also threatens to bankrupt the same businessman, to “turn him into a homeless man.” This is, of course, a new instruction to the aforementioned pocket institutions. From this, it is clear that the authorities do not intend to conduct an honest pre-election campaign, because they know that in that case they would lose. To reproduce his power, Pashinyan—as expected—will employ the repressive apparatus at his disposal on an even larger scale. In particular, dozens of investigators, prosecutors, judges, and other “service personnel” will now be running around to carry out the boss’s orders.
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Sometimes I read comments like this: let Pashinyan do whatever he wants (that is, resort to illegal actions), as long as our country remains sovereign. Supposedly, these people are concerned about Armenia’s sovereignty, not about the reproduction of Pashinyan’s power. I would like to remind those “concerned” that a sovereign country does not change its constitution at the request of another state and does not tolerate foreign troops on its territory.
This is indisputable and needs no further comment. But there is perhaps a more subtle point that may not be obvious to everyone. I believe that Armenia can be sovereign only under conditions of legality and democracy. And it does not matter at all who exactly encourages the unlawful and authoritarian manifestations of our country’s rulers—whether it is Putin or, as in this case, Ursula von der Leyen and Kaja Kallas. In all cases, for a country like ours, external actors demand a price for encouraging lawlessness. And this severely limits our sovereignty.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
