Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's call for a new constitution is widely being seen as a move to bow to Azerbaijan's latest demands.
Among other reforms, he wants to remove a provision in the nation's main legal document that calls for the unification of Armenia with the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Armenia and Azerbaijan fought two wars over Karabakh, in 1991-94 and in 2020. For 31 years the mainly Armenian-populated territory was governed by a de facto entity called the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR, also known by Armenians as the Artsakh Republic).
The NKR ceased to exist as of January 1, 2024, three months after a lightning Azerbaijani military offensive forced the region's entire Armenian population to flee.
Now, Pashinyan and his government say external threats necessitate a change in the constitution's preamble, which enshrines the text of the 1990 Declaration of Independence of the Republic of Armenia.
The former document affirms the December 1, 1989 declaration by the Supreme Council of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic that calls for unification of the Armenian SSR and Nagorno-Karabakh.
This apparent move to turn the page on Karabakh altogether and appease Azerbaijan has triggered heated debates in Armenian society.
Peace and legitimacy
The idea of rebooting the constitution altogether was first voiced by Prime Minister Pashinyan on January 18 during discussions on the Justice Ministry's activities during the last calendar year.
He gave two broad reasons. One, that the conduct of previous constitutional referendums was marred by fraud allegations, placing the entire document's legitimacy in doubt.
And two, that "new geopolitical and regional realities" require a new constitution in order to keep Armenia viable and competitive.
Regional politics have indeed changed radically since 2020, when Armenia suffered defeat in the Second Karabakh War. In that conflict Azerbaijan gained control of most of the territory that had been administered by the NKR for the previous 26 years, leaving behind a rump territory populated by Armenians and surrounded by Azerbaijani-controlled territory. Three years later, in September last year, Baku seized that, too, emptying Karabakh of its Armenian population.
Since then, Armenians have felt vulnerable to Azerbaijani attack given Baku's statements about cutting a corridor through the Republic of Armenia. So many saw in Pashinyan's statement a signal that he was ready to cave to Azerbaijani demands.
Then on January 31, the prime minister gave an interview to Armenian Public Radio in which he basically affirmed that was the case. He mooted holding a constitutional referendum since, as he put it, having the current constitution is like wearing red clothing while Armenia's hostile neighbors (Azerbaijan and Turkey) are bulls.
The current constitution's enshrinement of the Armenian SSR's 1989 declaration calling for union with Karabakh poses a threat to Armenia's security, Pashiniyan said, as it could provide a pretext for further Azerbaijani action.
"This means that we'll never have peace. Furthermore, it means that we will have war now… We are strengthening our army and everyone can see that we are spending major resources on reorganizing the army. That is to say, we are saying that we are strengthening our army and aim to implement the provisions of our declaration [union with Karabakh]. This means that our neighbors will ally to destroy us," the prime minister said in the radio interview.
Aliyev weighs in
The next day, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev stirred the pot by demanding that Armenia change the preamble to its constitution and other laws that according to Aliyev make claims on Azerbaijani territory.
"The Declaration of Independence of Armenia contains direct calls for the unification of Karabakh with Armenia, that is, the violation of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. There are also references to this document in the Constitution of Armenia. … Peace can be achieved if we put an end to these claims, amend the Constitution of Armenia and other normative legal documents," Aliyev said.
One day later the Constitutional Reforms Council under the Armenian Justice Ministry announced the formal start of work on the reforms."
For the Armenian opposition, this was proof that Pashinyan's push for a new constitution was the result of pressure from Azerbaijan and its close ally Turkey.
Artur Khachatryan, an MP from the opposition Armenia faction, told Eurasianet that, while the Pashinyan government has been pursuing constitutional reform for several years, "Now the authorities are proposing a whole new constitution, and this is something else altogether. From what government representatives say, it is clear that they want to delete the provision about union with Artsakh and that this is a result of pressure from Azerbaijan and Turkey."
The authorities' push for a constitutional break with Nagorno-Karabakh is difficult for Armenian society to swallow, as the battle for Karabakh has been one of the main pillars of Armenian identity for the past three-plus decades.
One of the people voicing this sentiment was Garegin Khumaryan, the director of Armenian Public Radio, who published a scathing commentary several days after the prime minister's appearance on his outlet. The argument behind revamping the constitution, as well as the ruling party's proposal to replace the country's coat of arms and national anthem, boils down to, "Let us stop being Armenians so that they don't kill us," Khumaryan said.
Stalling for time?
Armenian political analyst Hakop Badalyan suspects that Pashinyan and his team's rhetoric around constitutional reform could be a maneuver to buy time until the U.S. presidential election in November.
"I think it's possible that there ultimately might not be any constitutional reform. Reforming the constitution is a lengthy process, and it could at least serve to maintain stability at the Armenian-Azerbaijani border during this year. In the meantime the international situation will become clearer, as the U.S. elections will take place and we'll find out how willing Washington will be to devote efforts to securing a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan," Badalyan told Eurasianet.
Meanwhile, some analysts say Pashinyan could face serious difficulties adopting the new constitution if it is ultimately put to a referendum. The current constitution stipulates that an act put to referendum is approved only if both: 1) more than half the votes are in favor, and 2) more than a quarter of eligible voters vote in favor.
The number of eligible voters in the 2021 snap presidential election was about 2.6 million. This means that a minimum of roughly 650,000 votes in favor are required.
This will be a heavy lift for Pashinyan and his team, according to Badalyan. The ruling party, Civil Contract, garnered about 688,000 votes in the 2021 poll, which was hotly contested and which saw a high degree of public engagement.
If it comes down to a referendum, the analyst added, the authorities will try to get people to vote in favor by sowing fear.
"They will try to convince the people to vote in favor as a new constitution is the key to peace with Azerbaijan while the opposite result could lead to war."
Arshaluis Mgdesyan is a journalist based in Yerevan.