Nikol Pashinyan threatens and blackmails the voters with his statements about the war. It is a threat, blackmail, if you will, violence against the free expression of voters. This is how he commented 168 TVof Revue on the air of the program political scientist Edgar Elbakyan Yesterday’s celebrity of Nikol Pashinyan the statement about the “September War”.

The political scientist emphasizes that it is the duty of every government, first of all, to ensure democratic, free and fair elections, rather than trying to be re-elected at any cost. Continuing his thought, Edgar Elbakyan also emphasizes that the duty of the government and power bodies is to face external threats and neutralize them, not to scare their own people with war.

Taking into account the prospect of creating a European “hybrid nation” under these conditions, especially in Armenia, the political scientist suggests to fix from now on that the elections are already rigged. But it is also an addition: if the elections are really fair, these authorities will not be re-elected.

“It’s not information, it’s a threat, blackmail, if you like, violence against the will of the voters. In general, it is the duty of any government, if it is a democratic country and the government is formed in that country through elections, to provide such conditions that people can express their will freely. If, on the contrary, being in power, you are interested in people being in such a situation, and such a situation is the threat of force from Azerbaijan, and they make an election under those conditions, then let’s record from the beginning that the elections are already rigged, like the 2021 elections.

I am now speaking on my own behalf as a political scientist, and I emphasize this because the results of the 2021 elections were finally accepted in a big sense, in a political sense,” commented the political scientist.

Edgar Elbakyan recalls the well-known events of February 2021 in Armenia, and in particular, the statement of the General Staff of the RA Armed Forces led by Colonel-General Onik Gasparyan demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and the Government.

“Yes, the opposition presented some complaints to the courts, etc., but in a political sense, those results were accepted. There is no problem, maybe it was true, but I don’t accept it, because a few months before those elections, the General Staff of the RA Armed Forces issued a statement that these authorities are not capable of ensuring the country’s security, and Turkey intervened in our internal affairs there, making it clear that “I will do a lot of things if there is a change of power.” That’s why the 2021 elections weren’t really fair, and these aren’t fair either, if it’s going to go at this pace, and life shows that it’s going to go at this pace, people will have to be threatened. Let’s fix from Himikvan that these are unfair competitive conditions from the beginning.”։

According to the political scientist, we all understand that war is possible at any time, but the probability is much higher under the current rulers։

“He created the precedents, he treats Armenia as he would treat a hostile country, he uses, so to speak, a “scorched earth” tactic, when you retreat from some lands, it remains behind you, but you burn it completely, poison the wells, burn the fields, cut down the fruit trees, so that whoever comes after you will be a “Pyrrhic victory”.

He himself places all those “mines” under Armenia, so that even if someone comes after him or has ambitions to come after him, they will think for a while that this person is committed to, for example, establishing 300,000 Turks, the Ramilsafarovs, in Armenia. I have almost no doubt that there were also pre-negotiations on that topic, but they agreed to deal with it after the elections. Now some oppositionist will think. “Okay, I’ll come and tell you that I don’t do them. Well, I have to say it, because doing it is suicide, and the Turks say that’s why we attack. Well, they are attacking, at least we will defend ourselves, but how can we defend ourselves if they destroyed the army as well?

In other words, he consciously “burns” the Armenian land left after him, uses “scorched earth” tactics, so that he can stand up and say: “I am your peace,” this is how the political scientist explains Pashinyan’s policy.

According to Edgar Elbakyan, “starting from 2020, we are making daily elections”, and on June 7, we are dealing not with another election and internal political struggle, but with a national-liberation struggle and the dilemma of Armenia’s existence or not. According to his interpretation, if the events proceed in a pessimistic scenario and Pashinyan is re-elected with violations, then everything will depend on how quickly and with what quality all kinds of national, public, political, and spiritual subjects will find the strength to continue the struggle, understanding that it is long-lasting. In this sense, Elbakyan considers unity of national forces and not making mistakes to be key.

“That “quick response” “hybrid” is a structure with a mandate, the leadership of Armenia invited them. They will collect a set of cases, they will announce that “we saw a fake page on Facebook, it said: vote for this person, it is a fake page, and the Facebook settings show that they are operating from Russia”, they will collect several such anecdotal cases, both scandalous, accompanied by “mask-shows”, for example, a person will be caught at the airport and they will say: “You are an agent, You have come to a choice. We didn’t understand, isn’t that person a citizen of Armenia? Deprive them of their citizenship, like the people of Artsakh, bring them, fill the country with Turks, and we will survive. And on the basis of this, they will say that “foreign intervention has taken place”, and they will already have freedom of action to commit any illegality, to arbitrarily appoint a second round or invalidate the results. The risks are very serious, and if the national forces and the opposition forces are to go to these developments divided, fragmented and internally hostile, they may not go, because there is not at all exhaustive, nor ideal, but one optimal solution against this repressive machine – unity,” Elbakyan believes.

According to the political scientist, the agenda of Pashinyan’s government is not peace, but “the vision of the death of Armenia”.

“When you say alternative program of the opposition, it implies that the government has its own vision of peace. The government does not have a vision of peace, the government has a vision of the death of Armenia, which it presents as peaceful,” Edgar Elbakyan believes.

Talking about the topic of comparing the ideas of anti-Russianness and anti-Turkishness in the Armenian reality, political scientist Edgar Elbakyan notes that anti-Russianness as a sentiment in Armenia has a long history, starting from the second half of the 19th century, parallel to the general national awakening of the Armenians, while systematic anti-Turkishness has unfortunately not occurred in recent decades in newly independent Armenia.

“For example, I and other scientists known to me have not found the origin of the expression “Armenia without Armenians”. We never found it, but instead we found that at the end of the 19th century, at the beginning of the 20th century, there was already that reference among Armenians, that the viceroy said: “Armenia without Armenians”, and many, many other things have a history of many centuries. In the last years of independence, anti-Turkey was never practiced systematically, anti-Russian was practiced by the West and partly by Turkey. Anti-Turkey was not systemic. As a general meta-level sentiment, it has existed among the people, Turk is even an offensive word, but it has never existed in a political sense,” says the political scientist.

Let’s remind that yesterday, March 19, after the regular session of the Government, in a briefing with journalists, Nikol Pashinyan once again addressed the opposition forces. called “war party”, declaring that “the forces acting from the positions of peace revision are preparing a new September war with grave consequences”. Pashinyan’s statement received a wide reaction and opposition among the Armenian opposition. In particular, MP Kristine Vardanyan of the NA opposition faction “Armenia” with the “Review” program in the interview countered him, saying that the “party of war” in Armenia is represented by Nikol Pashinyan, and Nikol Pashinyan is the leader whose rule has seen the most wars and attacks against Armenia. Ishkhan Saghatelyan, representative of the Supreme Body of the ARF Armenia, in response to Pashinyan’s stated: “Nikol, you are the symbol of defeat, war, betrayal.”

Full interview in the video.

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