The middle-aged woman sparked a shouting match with Pashinian after approaching and accusing him of having “stolen my fatherland” in the city’s northern Arabkir district.

“You have wiped out a whole young generation,” she added, apparently referring to the 2020 war with Azerbaijan. “You have stolen my brother, my joy. You’ve tried to bring us to our knees. But we haven’t gotten on our knees.”

“If you are Rob, I’m going to bring Rob to his knees, Rob is going to go to prison, I’m going to take out Rob,” Pashinian shouted back, referring to former President Robert Kocharian. “I’m also going to bring the Kaluga man (Russian-Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetian) to his knees and take him out. Serzh [Sarkisian] and Gago [Tsarukian] as well.”

Pashinian also rejected her claim that he has “ruined the country.” “You have ruined, plundered it with Karabakh,” he charged in what appeared to be another attack on Karabakh Armenians.

Pashinian went on to blame his election challengers for a newly released video in which masked men speaking in an apparent Karabakh Armenian accent call for his violent overthrow. He described the unknown men as “fugitives” from Nagorno-Karabakh and said he will “take them out” too.

When asked by RFE/RL’s Armenian Service whether he has any evidence of opposition connection to the video, Pashinian said: “The evidence is that their rhetoric corresponds [to the video’s content.]”

Pashinian already stepped up his verbal attacks on the opposition leaders last week, branding Karapetian a “foreign spy,” pledging to send Kocharian back to prison and insulting Tsarukian’s fugitive son. The ex-president leading the opposition Hayastan alliance responded by calling him a “moron” and questioning his sanity.

Pashinian’s latest outburst provoked a storm of condemnation from the three opposition heavyweights and other critics of the Armenian government. Karapetian’s Strong Armenia bloc portrayed it as further proof that he is unfit to continue ruling the country.

“Armenia needs a real leader,” the bloc wrote above a video of the incident posted on its Facebook page.

“He insults because he has nothing to say, he has no program,” Tsarukian told journalists. “He has fooled the people for eight years, right from the beginning.”

“In addition to having sick dictatorial tendencies, he is also misogynistic, constantly trying to attack women,” said Kristine Vartanian, a senior Hayastan member. “But the women he comes across are all strong and dignified.”

Pashinian has repeatedly been confronted by lone angry voters during his campaign trips to various parts of the country. They included the mother of one of 15 Armenian soldiers who were found dead in their makeshift barracks destroyed by a major fire in January 2023. She blamed Pashinian for the deaths during his campaign rally on Friday in Metsamor, a town 40 kilometers west of Yerevan. Her voice was eventually drowned out by “Nikol Prime Minister!” chants from Pashinian’s supporters.

—