Ballots printed for the last ever direct presidential elections in Armenia
© Onnik James Krikorian 2008
With parliamentary elections in Armenia just over a year away, opposition figures and some analysts are increasingly questioning Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s prospects for re-election. Critics argue that he has failed to fulfil his widely promoted peace agenda and hold him accountable for the exodus of approximately 100,000 ethnic Armenians from the former Soviet-era Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) in late September 2023. They also point to unrealistic campaign promises made during the last parliamentary elections held in 2021, including the pledge to reclaim the strategic hilltop citadel of Shusha and pursue remedial secession for the separatist but now dissolved Karabakh — goals widely seen as unattainable from the outset.
Some argue that it was Prime Minister Pashinyan’s refusal to acknowledge the reciprocal nature of two agreed transport linkages —from Armenia to Karabakh and Azerbaijan to Nakhchivan— in November 2020 that led to a stalemate over the Lachin corridor. This, they contend, ultimately resulted in the demise of Karabakh as an ethnic Armenian political entity and was predictable since the ink dried on the trilateral ceasefire statement. Pashinyan was to exploit the complete loss of Karabakh to pivot politically, declaring it time to focus solely on securing the future of the Republic of Armenia within its internationally recognised borders. The Armenian opposition, however, claimed this outcome was orchestrated with the backing of the European Union and United States, aimed at reducing or eliminating Russian influence in the strategically important South Caucasus.
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Although the resurgence of a more assertive opposition under the guidance of Kocharyan and Sargsyan was predictable, what was less expected was Pashinyan’s ability to survive repeated political crisis after crisis. This resilience was most apparent in 2024 when Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, a revanchist cleric, failed to mobilise sufficient numbers on the streets to leverage sufficient public outrage just as the parliamentary opposition couldn’t even in 2022 when a pregnant woman was killed by Pashinyan’s speeding convoy in central Yerevan. On the other hand, with the trauma of defeat still fresh, many Armenians are naturally reluctant to risk further bloodshed in a conflict they are again unlikely to win. Armenia lacks meaningful security guarantees, and the European Union Mission in Armenia (EUMA) was never intended to act as one.
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Ultimately, however, it will all depend on the electorate which will likely be overwhelmed by a deluge of partisan propaganda, misinformation, and disinformation from multiple sources over the coming year in what could prove a highly contentious and bitter period defined by geopolitical and not domestic concerns. It is high time that society engages in informed discussion and debate beforehand to neutralise the potentially explosive consequences before it is too late. At the beginning of the year, Armenia’s Foreign Intelligence Service already warned that there were already signs of domestic instability to come in 2025. The stakes have never been higher.
The full piece is available here.
