Pashinyan’s new strategy is to appease Baku and crush the opposition

 

Nikol Pashinyan’s speech in the National Assembly once again revealed the real political agenda of post-election Armenia.

After the elections, when the public is waiting for clear plans for the country’s development, strengthening of security and solving economic problems, Pashinyan’s speech is dominated by completely different topics: the fight against the opposition, political labels and threats of repression.

It is difficult to find any strategic idea about the future of Armenia in Pashinyan’s speeches. Instead, he continues to divide society into “rights” and “wrongs,” “peacemakers” and “warmakers.” According to his assessment, more than half a million citizens who chose the opposition actually voted in favor of the war, the continuation of the Karabakh movement and the destruction of peace.

This is not only a political manipulation, but also an expression of the crisis of state thinking.

The head of a democratic state is obliged to represent the whole society, not to turn hundreds of thousands of citizens into political targets.

Pashinyan’s reference to the visit of Hikmet Hajiyev, assistant to the President of Azerbaijan, to Dilijan deserves special attention. Pashinyan actually hinted that these contacts are an important component of the peace process and war risk management.

However, he again tries to present the reality upside down. It was his pre-election campaign that labeled the opposition as a “three-headed party of war”, creating the impression that the main threat to peace is not in the external environment, but inside Armenia. That policy gave Baku an additional opportunity to use Armenia’s internal divisions and the political vulnerability of the government to serve its own agenda.

Today, when making new demands on Armenia, Azerbaijan can refer not only to its power advantage, but also to the fact that the Armenian government itself represents hundreds of thousands of votes of its own citizens as a threat to peace. This is a consequence of Pashinyan’s political criminal mistake.

In the current situation, Pashinyan’s behavior makes his new strategy more and more obvious: to show external actors, and especially Baku, that he is in full control of the domestic political situation. For that purpose, he uses increasingly aggressive rhetoric towards the opposition, effectively heralding a new phase of political pressure.

Possible criminal proceedings, arrests or other pressures against Samvel Karapetyan, Gagik Tsarukyan, Robert Kocharyan and other opposition figures can be presented under various fictitious pretexts, but their political context will be difficult to hide.

However, even the most extensive repressions cannot solve the fundamental problems facing Armenia. They cannot restore public trust, ensure economic development, strengthen the country’s security, or replace effective public administration.

Pashinyan’s main challenge is the impasse formed as a result of his own policies.

The fall of Pashinyan’s power is essentially a matter of time. However, the main mission of the responsible political forces today is to prevent the state and society from falling under the ruins of the possible collapse of Pashinyan’s power. Pashinyan will lose power, but Armenia should not lose its stability, security and development perspective.

Political scientist Suren Surenyants

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