Armenia’s political field, according to local political scientists, is in a depressing state. The government of Nikol Pashinyan, which came to power after the “velvet revolution” in spring 2018, has failed to improve relations with the systemic opposition for more than six years. On the contrary, after the 44-day war in Karabakh and the early parliamentary elections in June 2021, they acquired an openly conflictive character.
The authorities are weak, but their opponents in parliament are even weaker. This is the internal political reality, which is very reminiscent of a stalemate. By this weakness we do not mean the presence of power tools at the disposal of Pashinyan’s cabinet, which, as demonstrated by relatively recent waves of opposition movements in the republic, he uses quite skillfully to restrain his political opponents. This is electoral support that neither the authorities nor the opposition can describe as satisfactory at this point.
The current ratings of the ruling party “Civil Contract” (GD) and its leader, the current Prime Minister, at the level of 15 percent, as shown by the latest public opinion measurements, are a clear demonstration of the lack of support. of the citizens. For the opposition, whether parliamentary or extra-parliamentary, things are even worse when it comes to voter confidence. Some polls close the gap in ratings between the State Duma and the former president’s “Armenia” opposition bloc (which has the second-largest faction in the country’s National Assembly). Robert Kocharian at three times the value.
The appearance on the political scene, on its radical opposition flank, of the “Holy Struggle” movement (created in April 2024 with the name “Tavush for the Name of the Homeland”), led by the Primate of the Diocese of Tavush from Armenia. Apostolic Church, Archbishop Bagrat Gastanyan (Bagrat Srbazan) did not introduce significant changes in the overall balance of power. The protest movement has shown signs of fading since the start of the fall political season. The leader of the “Holy Struggle”, who organized demonstrations with tens of thousands of participants in May (a very serious number for sparsely populated Armenia), has not held them for several weeks. Civil disobedience actions, which were abundantly represented at the Tavush arsenal in the Name of the Fatherland last spring, have not been mentioned at all since protests resumed in early October.
This is not a capitulation of the opposition, but neither is it a pause that it has taken for tactical reasons to accumulate a critical mass of citizen dissatisfaction with the government. Everything is, perhaps, much more prosaic. Pashinyan’s radical opponents, who have been categorically demanding his resignation since November 2020 (the end of the 44-day war), simply lack the strength and support of “street” voters.
According to recent polls, at the peak of his popularity in May 2024, Bagrat Srbzan could only count on around 4% of the votes in the event of parliamentary elections “next Sunday.” In July this figure was already 1.5%.
The same measurements of public opinion revealed that between 50 and 55% of citizens with the right to vote oppose both the authorities and any other opposition political force and/or do not want to participate in elections at all.
The opposition explains its “impotence” by the progressive apathy of citizens towards the internal political situation, without mentioning their willingness to engage in active political struggle. Some Armenian political scientists with opposition views share much bolder conclusions, and do not simply affirm the unprecedented passivity of their fellow citizens in the years since the “Velvet Revolution.” So, Stepan Danielian Earlier this week he classified the republic’s political field into four conditional groups.
“People are at different levels in their aspirations and callings in life. What lifestyle priorities are there? 1st stage – food and sex, 2nd stage – money and wealth, 3rd stage – fame and recognition, 4th stage – knowledge, 5th stage – awareness of the meaning of existence. The destiny of nations is linked to the level of representatives among the electorate and the managers who make decisions. Armenia’s political field is mainly made up of people from the first and second groups. Sometimes they contain representatives of the third group. Even a small, extremely small, presence of the fourth group can advance Armenia, but somehow we can settle for the third group. For us this is a luxury.” – points out the political analyst.
These conclusions from renowned intellectuals in the republic are proof of what has happened to them and their disappointment. Perhaps, at some point, the radical opposition raised the bar of expectations too high on the part of the protest electorate and then simply could not avoid serious reputational losses in the eyes of its current and potential voters.
Postwar societies in countries that have faced painful defeats in military campaigns are characterized by political indifference and disappointment with politicians of all ranks. However, the stalemate in Armenia’s political sphere cannot last indefinitely. A revival is expected next year, presumably next spring, with the next parliamentary elections approximately 12 months away. At the current stage, it should be noted that the fall 2024 political season was interrupted by the opposition. References to the passivity of citizens, who cannot be “incited” in any way, are a weak excuse for opponents of Pashinyan’s government. .
It is noteworthy that in neighboring Georgia, ardent supporters of Euro-Atlanticism, when ranting about technologies to “agitate” the electorate, recently used terminology that was highly offensive to their Armenian partners. It is true that we were talking about some pre-electoral methods of using the so-called administrative resource by local and central authorities. One way or another, the “ethnicization” of such technologies in the vocabulary of Georgian Westerners clearly demonstrates their lack of at least a sense of political correctness.
An “Armenian carousel” was used in last Saturday’s parliamentary elections in Georgia. The president of Georgia talks about this. Salome Zurabishvili he said in an interview with the Associated Press published Oct. 28.
“For some reason we call it the “Armenian carousel.” I don’t know, maybe in Armenia they call it the “Georgian carousel”… This means that shortly before the elections, identity documents were confiscated from socially vulnerable people, families of prisoners, under various pretexts.” – said Zurabishvili.
According to her, this was done so that the same citizen “with an identity document” could visit the polling stations and “vote on different electronic devices,” explained the interlocutor of the American news agency.
Zurabishvili’s discussions of the “Armenian carousel” apparently referred to the practice of the ancient authorities of Armenia. It would seem strange if one of the leaders of Georgian Euro-Atlantists, with such statements, indirectly accused Pashinyan’s government of using “carousel” technologies. After all, in Yerevan there are politicians in power who are ideologically close (also in terms of foreign policy) to the President of Georgia.
The 53.93% achieved by the ruling Georgian Dream party is almost identical to the achievement of the Armenian “Civil Agreement” in June 2021. Then, unexpectedly for many, Pashinyan’s political association managed to reproduce itself with a result of 53.91%. Although the opposition challenged the results of the post-war early parliamentary elections before the Constitutional Court of Armenia, it accepted mandates and moved into a “positional” struggle.
In neighboring Georgia, post-election events are developing according to a different scenario, with elements of open internal political confrontation. Conditional dual power according to the Georgian model (the president is an oppositionist, the prime minister is a representative of the ruling party) does not threaten Armenia in the foreseeable future. At the same time, the local radical opposition has a worse initial chance of amassing a critical mass of citizens dissatisfied with the election results on the streets of Yerevan than was seen in Tbilisi earlier this week.
The Georgian opposition did not disperse its mobilization forces and resources into several waves of protest, as occurred in Armenia after 2020 (the two largest waves to date are the “Resistance Movement” in spring 2022 and the “Tavush in name of the Homeland” / “Sacred Struggle” “in the spring of 2024). Thus, having avoided a false political start and the disappointment of its supporters at the possibility of achieving success, the pro-Western forces in Georgia turned out to be much more far-sighted than their ideological opponents in Armenia, who see it in a close political-military relationship and economic union with Russia. However, signs of the protest were also emerging there. was fading, almost immediately after the large demonstration on October 28 on Tbilisi’s Rustaveli Avenue.
