As early parliamentary elections are nearing in Armenia, the internal political competition is becoming tougher. I don’t mean competition between political forces because the election campaign is taking place on the background of total domination of My Step, a bloc headed by Nikol Pashinian. Observers agree that the main intrigue of the upcoming elections is what political party will play the role of the opposition in the parliament and how big Pashinian’s win will be.
According to a GALLUP International Association opinion poll, My Step will take 68.3 per cent of votes, Prosperous Armenia – 6.7 per cent. If we rely on the opinion poll of November 23rd, there will be only two political forces in the parliament and Prosperous Armenia is hardly to be called an opposition to Pashinian. 68 per cent is an impressive result. However, it’s much lesser than 81 per cent, the support that My Step had in the Yerevan Elders Council elections in September when the Armenian society was under a spell of revolutionary euphoria.
Despite their no-lose position, members of the ruling bloc are making one mistake after another. And each of them can lead to serious negative consequences for Pashinian and his bloc’s popularity.
Confrontation with “the Karabakh clan”
Recently, Nikol Pashinian had made several quite expressive and ambiguous statements which caused strong public reaction in Armenia. For example, he heavily criticized representatives of the regime in Nagorny Karabakh, addressing to its leader Bako Saakyan. A supporter of Pahinian, the head of the Civil Contract Party, Sasun Mikaelyan, stated: “We won the Karabakh war but I’m not afraid to say that the victory earned by you, the Armenian people, in our country is more important than the Karabakh liberation war.” Considering the reality of uber-nationalistic Armenian society, the statement is a certain provocation. Mikaelyan understood that as well – that’s why he said “I’m not afraid to say” as he realized seditiousness of his idea and later he refined his statement. However, Karabakh Armenians, including representatives of the unrecognized regime, expectedly started to criticize the head of the Civil Contract. And the violent reaction of “the people’s Premier” followed the criticism soon:
“I don’t really understand firing of the Nagorny Karabakh authorities. Why are they stirring up, making a lot of comments and trying to interfere with the election campaign of the parliamentary elections in Armenia? I have to say I have a lot of questions on the issue and I will definitely discuss the questions with Bako Saakyan. And before that, I urge Mr. Saakyan to pacify members of his government and make them do their job,” Pashinian said. Then he pointed out that the spokesman of ‘Karabakh President’ commented on his statements every other day.
“I don’t understand how’s that the spokesman of Karabakh President comments on my statements every other day. Can you imagine that my spokesman comments on known and unknown developments in Karabakh? Can you imagine consequences and results of that? Get over and do your job! Of course I will discuss everything I’ve mentioned after the elections. But ahead of the elections, just do you job,” Pashinian said.
At the same time, “the people’s Premier” didn’t mention his favorite threat “to bring them facedown on pavement.” He had already addressed it to Sasna Tsrer, RPA, and everybody who dared to disagree with him.
No doubt, reformation of the Karabakh authorities is included into Pashinian’s agenda as Bako Saakyan’s team is too closely connected with his political rivals. Moreover, Nikol Pashinian suspects his critics of treason and working for foreign intelligence. He urged the National Security Service and the Military Counterintelligence to check the option. It’s a very strange demand in the mid of the election campaign for a politician who calls himself a democrat.
The CSTO Secretary General
Another sensitive issue for Pashinian is an appointment of the new Secretary General of the CSTO who obviously won’t be an Armenian representative. The current situation reveals a serious political failure – the Armenian Premier let Yuri Khachaturov be arrested, i.e. directly placed his internal political goals above interests of the allied organization. Pashinian’s recent statement that the problem of the CSTO Secretary General is “insignificant” should be considered as an attempt to downplay his failure. Moreover, the failure harmed relationships with Kazakhstan and Belarus as Pashinian demanded explanations from their presidents in a rough-and-tumble manner.
Investigation of the Case of March 1st, 2008
One of key promises of Pashinian was deep investigation of the case of March 1st, 2008 when after numerous falsifications in the presidential elections which led to a shift of power from Robert Kocharyan to Serzh Sargsyan, the opposition protests were cruelly put down by security forces and 8 people and 1 soldier were killed. However, during 7 months of his premiership, Pashinian hasn’t reached the set priority goal. Despite Pashinian and his team’s pressure on judicial authorities, Robert Kocharyan’s case is stuck, in no small measure due to absence of a possibility “to get” the former Defense Minister Mikael Arutyunyan who is a Russian citizen now.
No real success of the new government
It seems the main problem of Nikol Pashinian is that his team has failed to present real achievements in the socio-economic sphere during 7 months. We also don’t see a breakthrough in relations between Armenia and its foreign political partners, including the EU. The only resource of Pashinian’s popularity is still the fact that he made the very unpopular government of Serzh Sargsyan leave peacefully. At the same time, we shouldn’t fully trust the authorities’ statement that emigration from the country is stopped.
Nikol Pashinian also says that other achievement is relative peace on the border and the fighting line. However, obviously, Yerevan is interested in peace on the contact line, considering the difficult internal political situation. Azerbaijan which expects continuation of negotiations with the new Armenian authorities after the parliamentary elections doesn’t intend to rock the boat. Baku believes that to deal with Nikol Pashinian is easier and more promising than to deal with “the Karabakh clan.”
Is there democracy at all?
Finally, Pashinian’s statement on the victory of democracy and people as a result of the Armenian revolution has small credibility of outsiders. In any democratic state, after publishing of a wiretapped dialogue between heads of the National Security Service and the Special Investigation Service, which proves pressure on judicial authorities on Pashinian’s direct order, loud resignations would take place. Meanwhile, Pashinian accused Kocharyan and Sargsyan of “counterrevolutionary” intrigues and successfully hushed up the wiretapping case.
After a big win of My Step in the Yerevan Elders Council elections, Pashinian insisted on shifting the parliamentary elections to the closest date to secure the majority in the National Assembly. Before the Elders Council elections and high results of My Step, the parliamentary elections were suggested to be held next year. At the same time, Pashinian regularly threatens his political opponents to nail to the wall and bring them facedown on pavement.
In the conclusion I would like to say that Pashinian’s promises that the upcoming elections in Armenia will be “phenomenal” in the most positive sense of the word are appeared to be groundless. Of course My Step will get the electoral majority which is the main goal of shifting the elections to December. However, the level of support will be lower than Pashinian expects and his popularity will decrease from month to month. When the real level of support of My Step will turn to be much lower than the number of gained mandates in the National Assembly, Armenia gets back to the situation when the country has illegitimate parliament with the single-party majority. The only difference is the instead of RPA it will be My Step.
