The opposition Hayastan bloc in parliament on Apr. 9, 2024

Opposition forces in Armenia are sounding the alarm about deteriorating democratic norms, saying that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is actively “usurping the people’s free will choose.”

Pashinyan late last week told reporters that if any opposition force were to be elected Armenia would face war and urged the public to vote for him and his Civil Contract Party, claiming that they have ushered in peace after decades of war.
He reiterated those sentiments during a pre-election campaign stomp on Sunday announcing that if opposition forces are elected in June, a “catastrophic war” will be imminent by September.

“It [war] will happen in September, not any later,” Pashinyan declared, “There will be a war in September—a catastrophic war.”

Artsvik Minasyan, who represents the opposition Armenia faction in parliament called Pashinyan’s war mongering “criminal.”

“It is a threat to influence the people’s will, which is prohibited and a criminally punishable act,” Minasyan told Azatutyun.am on Tuesday. Another opposition lawmaker, Taguhi Tovmasyan, who represents the “I Have Honor” bloc said Pashinyan effectively was blackmailing voter.

Minasyan said Pashinyan is committing a crime, and the Prosecutor General’s Office must initiate criminal proceedings under Article 421 of the Criminal Code for actions aimed at renouncing sovereignty through the threat of violence.

“You see, one of the important elements of sovereignty is the _expression_ of democracy—the will of the people. When he threatens the will of the people with a possible, probable war, that is, with possible violence, he is already committing a crime against sovereignty. And if we had a normal Prosecutor’s Office – a Prosecutor’s Office that upholds the law, the constitutional norm, an Anti-Corruption Committee, an Investigative Committee, criminal proceedings should have been initiated by now,” Minasyan emphasized.

If the Prosecutor General’s Office does not take steps regarding Pashinyan’s statements, Minasyan does not rule out that his faction would appeal to law enforcement bodies.

Tovmasyan, the other opposition lawmaker, said she believed that Pashinyan’s actions against the free _expression_ of voters should become the subject of attention not only in Armenia, but also by international organizations.

“If we were a truly normal, democratic, developing country, and the Central Election Commission of the Republic of Armenia was not a subsidiary of the ‘Civil Contract’ party, but a truly independent commission, it should have already recorded that there is a violation of the will of the citizens of Armenia, and this violence is manifested in the form of blackmail: ‘If I am not elected, there will be war,’” Tovmasyan added.

Pashinyan claimed that the main opposition forces would walk back the peace agreement he reached with President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan in the White House last August, saying that those forces also had territorial claims from Armenia’s neighbors. Foreign Minister Arart Mirzoyan concurred with the prime minister, telling parliament on Monday that opposition forces pose territorial claims against “almost all of Armenia’s neighors.”

“We have never had territorial claims,” Minasyan countered, explaining that raising the issue of the fundamental freedoms and rights of Artsakh Armenians cannot be seen as incitement to war.

“We are not talking about territorial claims,” Minasyan said. “First of all, we are talking about a mechanism for the international acceptance of the dignified return of Artsakh residents with security guarantees and rights. We have never had territorial claims. No political force has officially presented a territorial claim, nor has it actually been spoken about it.”

The opposition insists that a so-called peace that prioritizes Baku’s whims cannot be real. Therefore, the main opposition forces of calling for international guarantees to establish peace—a position articulated by the prime minister in the past.

The opposition forces would like to renegotiate the current document that is not a peace agreement, but rather an initialed paper that expresses the sides’ willingness to work toward peace.

“It is necessary for there to be a mechanism that will make that peace long-term. It will be either an international consortium, so to speak, which will become the guarantor of peace,” Minasyan, the Armenia faction lawmaker, said.

He said that if Azerbaijan disagrees with such a mechanism that signals that Azerbaijan does not want peace.

Minasyan explained that he is advocating for engagement in diplomacy with international partners that “want peace in the region.”

“If they want peace, but Azerbaijan does not want it, it means that that international consortium becomes the entity that is talking to Azerbaijan, not Armenia,” Minasyan added.

Pashinyan, on the other hand, said discussing guarantees signals the willingness in engage international peacekeepers into the region and Armenia—a plan he has supported by asking for and receiving a European Union mission to Armenia, which will continue is mandate until early next year.

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