More than two months have now passed since the elections to the 9th convocation of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia. The newly formed parliament has, by and large, already held its first sessions. A deceptive calm nevertheless still reigns in the opposition camp, if we set aside the heated disputes and occasional jabs from both sides that were already familiar to us from the previous convocation. As is customary to say in such cases, and taking things somewhat jokingly, the opposition has arrived where it has arrived, leaving behind a heavy burden of illegitimate elections, failures, and disappointments. Who should bear the moral and political responsibility for this, without which it is impossible to build a healthy political system? We will return to this issue later.

If we were to characterize the June elections in a few words, they were indeed an unprecedented political event in our history, conducted by the government led by the Civil Contract Party and marred by electoral violations, vote-rigging, and the misuse of administrative resources. However, the fact that the authorities themselves were the “torchbearers” of electoral fraud does not relieve the opposition of its share of responsibility. Opposition forces must also feel responsible for the results recorded in the elections, especially given that the government ruthlessly “edited” those results in its own favor, going so far as to appropriate the 58,000 votes and four parliamentary seats received by the Prosperous Armenia Party.

As a reminder, after Nikol Pashinyan groundlessly accused Prosperous Armenia Party leader and businessman Gagik Tsarukyan of spying for the Russian Federation, Tsarukyan responded that if Pashinyan failed to prove his accusation, he deserved to be thrown into the cage of the “male lion” kept by him. In return, Pashinyan would not have been himself if he had failed to take revenge on the audacious businessman, whom he had promised to “make a bum.” And since Pashinyan never forgives a threat directed at his person or his position, he seized the votes Tsarukyan had received in the elections and had him imprisoned, while unlawfully confiscating his property piece by piece, regardless of whatever grave consequences this might bring upon Armenia.

Now, let us return to the opposition’s conscientious silence. Here, the main questions naturally concern the Strong Armenia Party and its leader. This was the only opposition force that spoke not of a possible victory, but of an absolute victory. And when questions arose about having a “Plan B,” its leader, Samvel Karapetyan, dismissed them, saying that they had no “Plan B” because they were completely confident they would take power. Moreover, Karapetyan is one of the rare figures in Armenia’s political history to possess such unique opportunities, owing to his authority, international ties, and past record.

The opposition field was well disposed toward him and welcomed his arrival. The public trusted him and placed its faith and respect in the Karapetyan family. Even competing political forces publicly expressed their support for the Strong Armenia Party and its leader during the pre-election period. Unfortunately, that exceptional trust was not justified. Strong Armenia, which had secured the highest ratings in nearly all independent opinion polls and had become a “thorn in the side” of Civil Contract Party members, proved unable to withstand the attacks and pressure of the ruling political force, as Pashinyan’s entire cohort of “pocket” law-enforcement agencies and police forces were deployed against it.

Samvel Karapetyan later declared that they had a secret plan to remove Pashinyan but days later it turned out that the first step of that plan was to take up their parliamentary mandates. It was claimed that a new political process would begin from that point. Earlier, it had been announced that within the framework of the "secret plan," the opposition had managed to achieve the removal of NA speaker Alen Simonyan, which was evaluated by some as trivializing the matter. And so, taking things jokingly, we arrived at the point where the person who brought defeat and disasters upon the country was "elected" prime minister of Armenia for the third time. It is painful, but a fact: Nikol is prime minister, and that’s it…?

“Hayatsk Yerevanits” Journal