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Armenia’s Snap Elections: Solution or Delusion?

by Edmond Y. Azadian

A fatalistic mood has descended upon Armenia; this is a time when the families of some of the 5,000 victims of the recent disastrous war rejoice if they find the remains of their loved ones. Ten thousand wounded soldiers are facing a tough road to recovery and mobility through the help of prostheses. The entire country is caught in the grips of a raging pandemic, pinning its hopes on herd immunity rather than the promised vaccines which have yet to arrive.

Life, as we see, is upside down in Armenia, except for political life, which is preparing for snap elections to be held on June 20.

The ruling My Step coalition of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, which has 83 seats in the 132-seat parliament, had previously hesitated to pull the trigger on snap elections as pressure was mounting from the opposition as well as other quarters. Members did not know how they would fare. At first, the party announced that there was no public clamor for elections when it was clear Pashinyan’s popularity was dwindling. Then, after they were reassured that the opposition had not garnered enough momentum, they started holding negotiations with Edmon Marukyan, the leader of the docile opposition party Bright Armenia in the parliament.

However, one of the deciding factors for snap elections was the realignment of the Prosperous Armenia Party. Its leader, Gagik Tsarukyan, earlier had joined the Homeland Salvation Movement, headed by former Prime Minister Vazgen Manukyan. It is not the first time that Tsarukyan has shifted allegiances. When his party quit the opposition movement of 17 parties and publicly stated that Prosperous Armenia would not propose a candidate for prime minister, Pashinyan’s party went ahead and announced the date for elections. The second blow to the opposition movement came from the Homeland (Hayrenik) Party, headed by the former Security Services Chief Arthur Vanetzyan. It is likely that Vanetzyan’s party may join Prosperous Armenia in an alliance, otherwise it does not stand a chance to have a representative in the parliament. The opposition movement lost popularity also, when its leader, Vazgen Manukyan, allowed the ARF leader Ishkhan Saghatelyan to upstage him.

The local ARF chapter in Armenia does not enjoy much popularity; its conduct even caused a split in the ARF ranks in the diaspora.

All these defections have resulted in the occupiers of the tents on Baghramyan Street, erected by the opposition to block entry to the parliament, to abandon their posts.

While the opposition was losing influence, a third party did not emerge to give an alternative choice to the electorate, further reassuring Pashinyan’s party that it did not face a serious challenge.

There are many fringe parties which plan to take part in the elections; Levon Ter-Petrosian’s National Party, Levon Shirinyan’s Christian Democratic Party, the Worker’s Party, the Heritage Party and many other groups whose names are not familiar to the public.

One important development which needs to be marked is the rise of the popularity of the National Popular Pole (Bever), which comprises Sasna Tserer and the European Party, headed by filmmaker Tigran Khzmalyan. No party in the past dared publicly to side with the West and NATO. The public rally held by this group on March 16 gathered a large crowd, which along the Armenian tricolor, waved the US and French flags. Speakers also stated that “from now on, the winds blow from the west, not from the north.”

They outright called for alignment with the European Union and with the US. This was the result of frustration from Russia’s treatment of Armenia during the 44-day war. Indeed, Moscow had supplied Armenia’s army with Iskandar missiles, which did not fire and with SU-30 fighter jets without their missiles.

To top it off, some authoritative voices in Moscow blamed the Russian side for instigating the war. Constantin Zatulin, the head of the Russian Duma’s Foreign Policy Commission, accused Russian actions of contributing to the start of the war, while the Kremlin leadership expected gratitude from Yerevan for having stopped the war, suggesting “otherwise Armenia would have faced the worst.”

In his plan to purge the army from its Russophile element, the prime minister had fired the chief of the army general staff Onik Gasparyan, who, along with 40 other officers, had demanded the former’s resignation.


The Armenian Mirror-Spectator

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