The relevance of this question entered Armenia's domestic political agenda abruptly and unexpectedly, following a revelation made by Armenia's second president during the February 17, 2025, news conference. In his statement, he announced that the Hayastan (Armenia) bloc would play a significant role in the upcoming political processes, whether through regular or snap parliamentary elections, or through street-level struggle tactics. Immediately after Robert Kocharyan's news conference, the question of who brought Nikol Pashinyan to power suddenly became a pressing issue. Moreover, it became a focal point of tensions between supporters of Armenia's second and third presidents.

In these turbulent times of geopolitical and domestic challenges in Armenia, questions about the rift between the Hayastan bloc and the With Honor faction in the National Assembly remain unanswered. Both parties have been reluctant to clarify the situation to media outlets, which tend to amplify discord. Some analysts have attempted to attribute the tension between the two opposition forces to ideological differences between Kocharyan and Sargsyan. While Kocharyan is often seen as a proponent of traditional conservative values, Sargsyan is perceived as leaning toward the liberal-democratic spectrum. However, for a significant portion of the population, they are regarded as "cut from the same cloth."

The mutual accusations primarily revolve around who ultimately facilitated the rise of the imbalanced person -- Nikol Pashinyan -- in 2018 to the people's head, which has now become a "Gordian knot" to get rid of. For Kocharyan's supporters, the blame lies squarely on Armenia's third president, Serzh Sargsyan. Their argument is not without merit: Sargsyan could have legally restrained Pashinyan's disruptive actions, but he failed to do so. These actions included blocking streets, disabling speed cameras, and even storming the Public Radio building, a specially protected strategic site, with a group of "backpackers." Furthermore, Pashinyan eventually received the additional votes from Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) members that he needed to become prime minister.

At first glance, the question "Who brought Nikol?" seems rhetorical, as the answer appears obvious. In the spring of 2018, he was propelled to power by various groups of "Serzh rejecters," each with their own motives. External actors pursued geopolitical agendas, while different segments of Armenian society had their own reasons. These groups were remarkably diverse, encompassing RPA coalition partners, ordinary and influential party members, businessmen, agents of foreign influence, members of the national and social bourgeoisie, citizens yearning for change, the unemployed, and many others. In short, it was the "frenzied masses."

Everyone was rejecting Serzh. He had alienated nearly everyone, leading the country into a deadlock. His governance was seen as incompatible with justice, and he failed to propose a political solution to the Artsakh issue, ominously predicting that "Stepanakert" could one day become merely a nostalgic song, akin to Kars or Adana. Whether deliberately or unintentionally, Serzh paved the way for the Yelq (Way Out) bloc, whose most immoral, anti-state, but militant face was Nikol—a professional rejecter of everything, including Artsakh, our 30-year history, and national-state symbols.

Nevertheless, the question "who brought Nikol?" is fundamentally much deeper than it might seem, because Nikol is not merely a person, but rather a symptom with its own focal point of "disease." It is our environment and atmosphere that make the conditional emergence of new Nikols possible. An environment whose formation we all participated in, under the leadership of all three post-independence leaders. It is this environment that desperately needs healing if Armenia is to prevent future iterations of "putative Nikols."