Graphic: Various Media. Original Source Unknown.
The Center of Analysis of International Relations (AIR) has just published my latest on the continuing impasse and discussion on Baku’s demand to remove the current preamble to Armenia’s Constitution that I’ve been consistently covering since January last year. This has also includes pieces quoting commentators in both Armenia and Azerbaijan, including AIR Centers’s Farid Shafiyev.
Although Armenia’s next parliamentary elections are not scheduled to take place until mid-2026, many analysts and political commentators believe the pre-election campaign period has already started. The first sign was arguably in November when Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan reprimanded and replaced several officials. A month earlier, a survey by the International Republican Institute (IRI) indicated that only 16 percent of respondents trusted his leadership. Only 20 percent said they would vote for his Civil Contract party if elections were held that weekend.
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In an unexpected move, Pashinyan also shaved off his beard as if trying to return to his revolutionary heyday in 2018 when he led protests forcing his predecessor, Serzh Sargsyan, to resign. Not only did Pashinyan grow his beard then but also donned a camouflage t-shirt, adopting the look of a fighter from the First Karabakh war. Many argue that along with other populist behavior this made the outbreak of full- scale war in September 2020 all but inevitable.
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That same day he had already stirred controversy by equating the 1990 Declaration of Independence with the “non-existence of Armenia” itself. He was referring to how it called for the “Reunification of the Armenian SSR and the Mountainous Region of Karabakh” and is referenced in the preamble to the country’s constitution. This issue has been raised by Baku in the past and many calls were made last year for it to be removed if an overdue agreement on normalizing relations was to be signed.
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Though Pashinyan counters that no such claims exist in the constitution, he has anyway said similarly, criticizing the 1990 declaration for keeping Armenia in conflict with Azerbaijan and Türkiye for the foreseeable future. His critics maintain that this confirms he plans to remove preamble in any constitutional changes,something that he has been planning since coming to power. When last changed in 2015, the President Sargsyan did so only to extend his rule past a two-term limit by switching from a semi-presidential to parliamentary system of government.
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But that was then and this is now. Following the 2020 defeat, there has instead been speculation that Pashinyan plans to forge a fourth republic to replace the third established in 1991. For Pashinyan, this would mark a new chapter in the country’s history, relegating the Kocharyan and Sargsyan era from 1998 to 2018 to history. It could also help the country move on from its defeat in 2020 and absolve Pashinyan from any blame for it. Earlier this year, Pashinyan even equated that defeat to an opportunity to now form an “independent and sovereign state.” In what he has also termed a transformation from “Historical Armenia” to “Real Armenia,” Pashinyan continues to stress the necessity of forging peaceful neighbourly relations with Azerbaijan and Türkiye.
The full analysis is available here.
