After the parliamentary elections in Armenia, the re-elected "revolutionary" government, headed by Nikol Pashinyan and his Civil Contract party, did not publish a coherent political program for bringing the republic out of the protracted political crisis. The authorities ignore the position of the nationalist wing of Armenian politics, and the losers, but the leaders of the Karabakh separatism who have passed to parliament, refuse to accept the results of the extraordinary vote. The confrontation will continue, but in a different format.
Significant figures in Armenian politics and business seem to have caught the wind of change, considering the recent elections to be the collapse of the ideology of Karabakh separatism that followed the defeat of Armenia in the Second Karabakh War. Even before summing up the results at the headquarters of the Civil Contract, the former head of the unrecognized NKR Arayik Harutyunyan, who thus expressed support for Pashinyan. Such a political maneuver cannot be considered something unexpected, if we take into account the distance that Harutyunyan kept in relation to ex-presidents Robert Kocharian and Serzh Sargsyan when they arrived in Karabakh at the height of hostilities.
Harutyunyan is a typical representative of the second generation of Karabakh separatists who do not share the romance of trench life, preferring to develop their own business interests. Supporting Pashinyan, Harutyunyan concludes a mutually beneficial agreement, thanks to which he will nominally retain his fake political positions, and most importantly, the remnants of his monopoly business on the territory of the unrecognized republic. Under Pashinyan, Harutyunyan and his entourage do not need to prepare for the next military campaign, donate their funds to prepare for war. Pashinyan removes any responsibility from the top of the separatist regime, since he is ready to delegate the solution of issues related to the post-war settlement either to Russia or to the OSCE Minsk Group.
A little more unexpected was the fact that the head of the "Tashir" company Samvel Karapetyan, during a personal meeting with Nikol Pashinyan, expressed his readiness to cooperate with the newly elected government. A long-term ally and sponsor of the Karabakh clan, a man who helped finance the Armenian army and, according to rumors, paid the bail for the suspect Kocharyan, considered the outcome of the early elections favorable for himself. Karapetyan is a businessman, and Pashinyan has never been at enmity with businessmen, preferring to cooperate with them through his wife's charitable foundations. Some Armenian oligarchs took advantage of this, having received a kind of indulgence, which allowed them to continue their business under the new government.
Three years ago, Karapetyan refrained from recognizing Pashinyan, expecting a counter-revolution on the part of Kocharian. Then the position of the business empire of the head of the "Tashir" group in Armenia was greatly shaken. After two defeats of the separatists - in the war and in the elections - Karapetyan apparently intends to restore his influence in the republic so that the financial channel between Russia and Armenia is not occupied by anyone else from among the influential members of the Armenian diaspora in the Russian Federation. At the same time, there are no ideological contradictions between the newly elected prime minister and a Russian businessman of Armenian origin. Karapetyan has previously invested in Armenian politics in exchange for broad preferences in the Armenian business space. Like Harutyunyan, Karapetyan no longer risks re-investing in the Armenian army, which Pashinyan is not interested in.
The systemic opposition, once loyal to the separatists, is switching to a backup version of political development. Such parties as Prosperous Armenia of Gagik Tsarukyan will go into the shadows for an indefinite time, concentrating on preserving their business assets. Since doing business in Armenia without cooperation with the Pashinyan administration is unsafe, there is hardly a businessman in the republic who is ready to provide indirect financial support to the enemies of the newly elected prime minister, who does not hesitate to demand from the investigating authorities to initiate criminal cases.
The leaders of the local self-government bodies of Syunik and a number of regions, who supported Kocharian during the elections, also fear for their future. During the election campaign, Pashinyan was ready to lose everywhere except Syunik. His unsuccessful trips to the region, acting The prime minister more than once concluded with words about imminent retaliation against regional self-government bodies in the event of his re-election. It seems that the worst thing for the Syunik officials did happen, because on June 25 a meeting was held at the headquarters of the Kocharian bloc between the ex-president and the heads of the communities. The future of many officials of the Syunik region is now in question.
