22 June 2021
On June 20, 2021 Armenians voted in snap parliamentary elections that was held as a result of political crisis erupted after ethnic Armenian forces lost a six-week war against Azerbaijan in November 2020 and ceded territory in and around the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh (BBC 2021, Armenia Election). Following the preliminary results, Armenia’s acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party won 53.9 percent of the vote, while former President Robert Kocharyan’s Armenia Alliance – which is alleging election fraud — got 21 percent (ibid). International observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation of Europe (OSCE) assessed the election as “competitive and generally well-managed” (OSCE office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights 2021).
“Despite the limited time for the implementation of the recent amendments to the electoral code, the administration of the elections was positively assessed by the majority of our observers” (ibid). However, the positive assessment from the international observes, are not accepted Pashinyan’s main opposition alliance leaded by Robert Kocharyan who announced that they would not recognize the results, pointed alleged voting irregularities and urged his supporters to rally Yerevan’s main square.
Armenian’s political turmoil has rather long implications than current snap parliamentary elections. Nikol Pashinyan became the Prime Minister of Armenia in 2018, he came into power as a revolutionary leader who led a movement on Armenia’s streets that brought down his rival, Serzh Sargsyan, after 11 years of ruling. Sargsyan had amended Armenia’s constitution to prolong his Putin-style run of political office under which he served as president and then prime minister in order to maintain his power as long as possible. The amendment would have let Sargsyan effectively rule for life (Euronews 2021). Following waves of demonstrations and rallies back in 2018, Sargsyan realized that he and his government had lost legitimacy and large number of supporters, he was finally urged to announce about his resignation – “Nikol Pashinyan was right. I was wrong, the situation has several solutions, but I will not take any of them… I am leaving office of the country’s leader, of prime minister” (BBC 2018).
Following Sargsyan’s resignation, Nikol Pashinyan took the office of Prime Minister after being voted by the majority of parliament. In his speech to Armenians, he proclaimed the birth of a new era in Armenia’s political life with a fresh political will, stability and democratic development. He declared democratization as essential component for peace and stability in the South Caucasus. “Democracies are not supposed to wage wars against each other. I hope that one day our region’s democratic development will rule out the risks of hostilities, wars and hatred. Armenia has firmly embarked on this path and strongly stands for regional peace, stability and reconciliation” (Armenpress 2018).
Despite the strong and widely declared course towards the Western values and peaceful resolution of conflicts, his statements proved completely around. Pashinyan, surprisingly, adopted double-standard in international politics, he has tried to aspire for integration in international organizations such as the EU and NATO, while at the same time made it clear that his government will accept Russian military bases and Russian border guards, as well as maintaining Armenia’s membership in Russian-led intergovernmental institutions such as the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). He has sought to show respect for Russia’s foreign-policy interests while also asserting Armenia’s sovereignty in a way that is compatible with Russian president Vladimir Putin’s own vision of state sovereignty (Lanskoy and Suthers 2019).
It’s not hidden, that Russia has a strong influence on Armenia, controls key sectors of the Armenian economy, including gas and electricity distribution; Russian forces operate a military base in Gyumri and patrol Armenia’s borders with Turkey and Iran; and a considerable percentage of Armenian citizens either reside in Russia permanently or migrate there on a seasonal basis (Lanskoy and Suthers 2019). Russia’s prominent role was once again visible in Nagorno-Karabakh events. Nagorno-Karabakh is part of Azerbaijan, but majority of its population are Armenians and since November, 2020 the territory was fully controlled by separatist ethnic Armenians backed by the Armenian government. The tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan regarding Nagorno-Karabakh region, has never been stable. The parties regularly engaged in armed conflicts and claiming the territory.
The latest conflict broke out on 27 September, 2020. In late September 2020, heavy fighting broke out along the border—the most serious escalation since 2016. More than one thousand soldiers and civilians have been killed, with hundreds more wounded on both sides. Armenia said Azerbaijan fired the first shots. Azerbaijan said it was launching a “counter-offensive” in response to Armenian aggression. Negotiations and mediation efforts, primarily led by the Minsk Group, have failed to produce a permanent solution to the conflict. The Minsk Group, a mediation effort led by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), was created in 1994 to address the dispute and is co-chaired by the United States, France, and Russia. Six weeks warfare finally came to an end in November when the both sides, Armenia and Azerbaijan, signed a Russian-brokered peace deal (BBC 2020). Under the terms of the deal, Azerbaijan holds on to several areas that it gained control of during the conflict and Armenia will withdraw troops from them. Almost 2,000 Russian peacekeepers will monitor the truce.
Nagorno-Karabakh developments have significantly declined the popularity of Pashinyan’s government. The protests were held in the streets demanding the prime-minister’s resignation because of the peace deal that he signed to end six weeks of fighting with Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Thousands of Armenians took to the streets in the capital of Yerevan to protest the deal with Azerbaijan that led to Baku reclaiming control in the large parts of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding areas that had been held by Armenian forces for more than a quarter-century. The agreement has been seen as a betrayal of national interests by many in Armenia. In response to the popular unrest, Pashinyan called early parliamentary elections to bring the country out of a political crisis that followed last year’s war with Azerbaijan. This was not an easy compromise for Pashinyan considering his decline in popularity, nevertheless, it seemed to be the most favorable option.
Paradoxically, the prime-minister Nikol Pashinyan managed to win the post-war roll and is about to take the tenure for the second term with the majority of seats in the parliament. His victory is also recognized at the international level. However, the political tensions do not seem to pause in Armenia, instead it might reach the peak as the opposition party do not accept the results of the election. Future development of Armenia is very much depended on Pashinyan’s geopolitical course. One thing is clear, democracy and European values come into conflict with Armenia-Russia relationship. Nikol Pashinyan, ultimately, has to make a decision whether he follows the Western way of politics and leads Armenia to become a successful democratic state, or continues his close, behind the scenes relationship with Russia. Sacrifice is necessary as these two praxis clearly mismatch.
References
Armenpress (2018), “PM Nikol Pashinyan delivers remarks at Nelson Mandela Peace Summit in UN Headquarters”, accessed 22 June 2021 <https://armenpress.am/eng/news/948426/eng/>.
BBC (2021), “Armenia Election: PM Nikol Pashinyan wins post-war poll”, accessed 22 June 2021 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57549208https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57549208.
BBC (2018), “Serzh Sargsyan: Armenian PM resigns after days of protests”, accessed 22 June 2021 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43868433.
BBC (2020), “Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia sign Nagorno-Karabakh peace deal”, accessed 22 June 2021 < https://www.euronews.com/2021/06/18/armenia-s-nikol-pashinyan-is-fighting-for-his-political-life-here-s-why.
Miriam Lanskoy and Elspeth Suthers (2019), “Armenia’s Velvet Revolution”, Journal of Democracy Volume 30, accessed 22 June 2021 <https://www.ned.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Armenias-Velvet-Revolution-Lanskoy-Suthers.pdf>
OSCE office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (2021), accessed 22 June 20221 <https://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/490364>.
By Nino Zotikishvili: The European Institute for International Law and International Relations.
