Nikol Pashinyan is a populist. Whether on the domestic or international scene, it is difficult to consider him a statesman. Populism defines his words and permeates his actions. But in comparison with those leaders before him, he is also a rarity in Armenia’s post-independence history – he is a democratically elected leader. Despite the devastating defeat in Armenia’s recent war with Azerbaijan in 2020, Pashinyan emerged victorious in snap parliamentary elections held just seven months later.
But democratically elected does not necessarily mean democratically inclined. On the same campaign trail, Pashinyan brandished a steel hammer, adorned with a ribbon in the colours of the Armenian flag. It was intended to “fall down” on “empty heads,” he said. When a complaint was filed with the constitutional court, he emerged victorious again. The hammer, it was claimed, symbolised a “dictatorship of law and justice,” not an incitement to violence.
Despite concerns about such rhetoric, it hardly changed anything. Running against candidates from two former regimes helped. Pashinyan was more skilled in communicating with the masses and seen as a better choice. He was also ready to embrace nationalism when necessary. In the 2018 street protests that propelled him to power, he donned a camouflage t-shirt and grew his beard, co-opting the image of a fedayi ready to fight and die for his country on behalf of the people.
Mobilising symbolism and props by political leaders is not new, of course. They “serve as a visual metaphor, as a metonym, as a concrete illustration of an abstract concept, or […] evidence that a certain event took place,” a December 2020 paper on their use by Israel’s Binyamin Netanyahu explained. “[They] echo and accentuate the identity and worldview of the speaker, but may also give rise to meanings that undermine the speaker’s intention.”
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Perhaps, if populism arguably contributed to the last war and the loss of Karabakh it could also be used to usher in a new era of peace and regional integration, coincidentally relegating nationalist narratives and mythologies of old to the annuls of history. It will also prove instrumental to maintaining Pashinyan’s rule. In 2013 he already used the slogan of “Real Armenia” but at that time to rally for an Armenia without Serzh Sargsyan. In 2018 it succeeded.
The full analysis is available here.
