Stagnation era begins in Armenia

The political situation in Armenia remains stable: the authorities and the opposition continue to squabble, and the public is passively watching the populist speeches of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, promising to build a strong statehood. It seems that the authorities have chosen a comfortable playing environment for themselves, but in reality the situation in the upper echelons of power is stagnating, exposing the weaknesses of the current administration's policy.

Pashinyan did not give up reprisals against his political opponents. He calls this process measures for the purification and rejuvenation of Armenian politics. Now repressions are directed against the associates of his main political opponents, not opposition leaders. Pashinyan realized that it was difficult to put ex-President of Armenia Robert Kocharian behind bars, so he focused on lesser-known, but colorful political figures who joined Kocharian's coalition. The arrest of Armen Charchyan, the former director of the Izmirlian medical center in Yerevan, a member of the parliament from the Armenia bloc, Armen Charchyan, was a message addressed to well-known Armenian doctors, lawyers and simply respected professionals in society who refused to support the "revolutionary" government. Pashinyan cannot win over the Armenian intelligentsia to his side, and therefore resorts to intimidation, hoping to bring disloyal intellectuals out of the Armenian politics.

While some politicians are persecuted by the authorities, others are moving up, which demonstrates a purely partisan approach to personnel policy. Administrative appointments are limited exclusively to members of Pashinyan's team, since the prime minister prefers to trust ideologically correct candidates rather than recruiting professionals. So the post of head of Armenian diplomacy was taken by Pashinyan's closest associate, former speaker of the parliament Ararat Mirzoyan. Already the former acting Foreign Minister Armen Grigoryan returned to the post of Secretary of the Security Council of Armenia, explaining his previous appointment with "a business trip to the Foreign Ministry." This "business trip" did not bring Pashinyan the expected result, as a result of which Grigoryan was recalled, although a month ago experts from the prime minister's team assured that, being the secretary of the Security Council, Grigoryan was out of place. Pashinyan did not dismiss or demote Grigoryan to a position commensurate with him as the head of some pro-government youth asset, so he decided to shuffle the same deck of cards again.

In general, Pashinyan is satisfied with the current political situation. He has not yet succeeded in achieving closer pro-Western integration. World politicians are concerned about the problem of Afghanistan, the CSTO is closely monitoring the situation in Central and Central Asia. Against this background, Pashinyan prefers to leave political leave, slowly plunging into the routine of daily problems in Armenia.

The shortsightedness of Pashinyan's policy is confirmed by the fact that none of his initiatives find support from foreign policy partners and the diaspora. For example, the West was disappointed with the prime minister's appointments, which affected Armenian diplomacy. Pashinyan did not explain why members of his team became ambassadors of Armenia to Ukraine and the United States instead of professionals. Therefore, the foreign policy partners of the head of the Cabinet of Ministers suspected him of striving to appoint curators who should have overseen the transfer of part of the oligarchs' business projects from the ruling party outside the republic.

In Armenia itself, Pashinyan prefers not to show initiative unnecessarily, since excessive activity can damage the reputation of the "people's" prime minister, which the nationalist opposition can take advantage of.