In any country, elections create a certain degree of political tension. But in established states, this is a manageable crisis — one that subsides after the vote. Post-election turmoil can arise anywhere. One need only recall how supporters of Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol in 2020. Yet even after those dramatic events, political life eventually returned to normal.
In developed countries, there is a certain mechanism through which ruling and opposition elites reach an understanding while continuing, of course, to criticize each other relentlessly. They send a clear signal to their supporters: “We are political rivals. We will never agree on issues concerning the country’s future. But we are all citizens of the same state.”
What signal, meanwhile, are Nikol Pashinyan, the Civil Contract party, and their propagandists sending to their electorate? That their political opponents are enemies of the state, Russian agents, thieves. In other words, anyone who does not want Pashinyan to remain in power is portrayed as morally suspect, hostile to the country, or motivated by personal gain. Tens of thousands of citizens are thus turned into “outcasts,” pushed to the margins by the authorities. The initiator of this process is, undoubtedly, Pashinyan himself. In response, the opposition also attempts to demean and label Civil Contract voters.
In such an atmosphere, regardless of the election results, the political crisis will not be resolved, and social tension and polarization will persist. Stability and internal peace emerge when elites are capable of reaching agreements. It is clear that this is impossible under Pashinyan. If, by some miracle, the current prime minister were to stop persecuting, threatening, and insulting his opponents, he would lose at least half of his electorate. And with what remains of that electorate, he clearly cannot win a fair election. The increasingly hysterical rhetoric we continue to witness, as well as the political mobilization of the law-enforcement system, point precisely to that reality.
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But the next government, if it truly puts the interests of the state first, must come to terms with the idea that one day it, too, will lose an election — and that afterward it will be obliged to congratulate the opposition that defeated it. When that happens twice in succession, we may say that our state has finally turned the page on instability.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
