Votes of Armenian citizens were stolen. Mamijanyan’s speech at PACE

In his speech at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Hayk Mamijanyan, deputy of the “I have honor” faction of the National Assembly, stated that democracy in Armenia is under serious threat, calling Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan a “dictator” several times.

In particular, he noted: “Today I want to talk about democracy and even play a little quiz with you.

What would you call a politician who deprives citizens of their fundamental right, the right to vote? The answer: a dictator.

And what would you call a politician who arrests his political opponents every day? I mean literally, every day some dissident is arrested for expressing his opinion. I think the answer to this question is also obvious. dictator.

Or what would you call an official who behaves as if he is the Prime Minister, the Chief of Police, the Attorney General, the Chief Justice and even has ambitions to lead the church at the same time? Here, too, there is only one answer: a dictator.

Harassment of public sector employees, selective application of the law, excessive use of pretrial detention, insufficient investigation of politically motivated police abuses, and weakening of the independence of the judiciary. These are the wordings of the preliminary report of the OSCE observation mission on the Armenian parliamentary elections.

However, I will not touch on all the violations, because one of them is special. Thousands of voters were disenfranchised in this month’s 2026 elections, as election results in three polling stations were simply declared invalid. A second vote was not scheduled, although the law directly required it.

Pashinyan’s government simply ignored the clear requirement of the law. And it is important, because as a result, one of the opposition parties did not overcome the passing threshold by only a few hundred votes. Those voices were simply taken away from them.

All these violations were committed in order for the ruling party to secure a 3/5 majority in the parliament. The votes of the people of Armenia were stolen.

During the last five years, I have spoken from this podium about the rights of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, the aggression and crimes committed by the Aliyev regime, the fate of my compatriots held in Azerbaijani prisons, the fate of the missing, the occupied territories of Armenia and many other issues.

Today, there are no more Armenians left in Artsakh. And today I am again talking about gross violations of human rights in my country. I hope that this time the international organizations will react faster than before, until those who speak out against these violations are in jail.

Even if Europe tolerates another post-Soviet dictator, we, the people of Armenia, will not tolerate it. Thank you.”

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