As part of the election campaign, unprecedented and deeply shameful events are taking place in Armenia, with the central figure being, however unbelievable it may seem, the incumbent authorities themselves, embodied by Nikol Pashinyan, who occupies the office of prime minister. In other words, the head of government, instead of upholding and safeguarding the reputation, honor, and dignity of the country entrusted to him, is personally tarnishing its good name and sacrificing it for the sake of personal interests. The immediate occasion is the parliamentary elections scheduled for next week and his apparent determination to secure a third term in power. As a result, there is a significant likelihood that the elections may be manipulated or falsified.
However, if one examines the situation more closely, the process of rigging the June 7 parliamentary elections began long ago, at least as early as May 8. In this context, the assurances given by relevant international organizations and election-monitoring bodies that everything is in order regarding Armenia’s upcoming elections are not convincing. In reality, the facts point in the opposite direction: the authorities have extensively deployed administrative resources, something we witness daily during the campaign, including instances where people, schoolchildren among them, are transported by bus to rallies of the Civil Contract Party.
The party that naturally controls the situation is the ruling political force, which is served unquestioningly by the entire apparatus of the state, with its legal, ideological-political, and security instruments. Meanwhile, Pashinyan’s “pocket” law-enforcement system is being used as a punitive tool against the opposition. The detention facilities of Armenia’s Investigative Committee have never been so overcrowded under any previous leadership. Anyone who has, willingly or unwillingly, stood in his way, who has obstructed, criticized, or opposed him in any manner, has been sent behind bars, regardless of their innocence or the absence of any criminal wrongdoing.
Pashinyan’s instruments are not only the security forces but also members of the government, deputies of the Civil Contract faction, and, in short, everyone he can dismiss from office with a single SMS message.
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Read the full article in “ACNIS ReView from Yerevan”
The Armenian Center for National and International Studies
