July 10, 2026
The opposition announced to take the parliamentary mandates and go to the National Assembly. There were both condemning and justifying evaluations.
But beyond emotions, it is now a reality, a new political status quo. The two opposition forces, individually and collectively, have one more supreme task: to prove to the public the truthfulness and justification of their decision to take the mandates. And that is a much more difficult task than participating in elections and getting votes.
It requires many times greater, multi-layered intellectual work, strategic thinking and planning.
By conventional definition, if during the pre-election period everyone, accepting the rule of the game dictated by the government, was guided only by sharp rhetoric, flexibility of language, then now is the time to generate political thought only and exclusively with intelligence and on its basis.
The announcements of combining the street and mandates, which have been heard so often in recent weeks, require literate, calculated political work beyond rhetoric, which is almost theoretically the only possibility to change this situation.
But in order for this to happen, the opposition must be able to get out of the regime of conventionality, standard, which it was in during the entire pre-election period, and which contributed to the reproduction of the current government.
In other words, if the opposition MPs will participate in the work of the new National Assembly with standard tools: statements, sharp questions during question-and-answer sessions, the development and defeat of projects condemned from the beginning, just pleasing to the ear.․․․ then they will unwittingly contribute to the strengthening and degeneration of the government, which, by the way, will also be expressed in the struggle against the same oppositionists.
On the contrary, at this moment, the only possible way must first start with a change in thinking, moving the situation and reality beyond standard, average statistical measurements and developing appropriate actions.
Moreover, we are not talking about a very long-term process. If, from the very beginning of the work of the National Assembly, the opposition MPs are not able to send a signal to the public that they did not go to the National Assembly to make bold speeches about the government for another five years, but to really implement a change of power through the combination of the street and the parliament, the public will very quickly and irrevocably be disappointed with everyone.
The parliamentary mandate is a tool to turn the political agenda of the street into a result. Until this moment, the opposition does not directly, but hints that it treats the street as a tool.
This is a conceptual breach, which, if it continues after the start of the parliament’s work, will receive the equivalent attitude of the public, providing Armenia only with spectacular scenes of the antics of the government and the opposition, which have already ceased to be even of sporting interest.
—