VACUUM AFTER VICTORY

Armenia held the second elections after the adoption of the new constitution. As expected, the winner of the parliamentary elections was the political bloc My Step headed by Nikol Pashinian. But perhaps no one expected such a huge gap between the opponents: according to the Central Election Commission of Armenia, My Step received 70.45% of the votes, Prosperous Armenia - 8.37% and Bright Armenia - 6.37% only. Now Pashinian has an overwhelming majority in parliament and the ability to promote his bills. Of course, no one doubts that he will be the new prime minister of the country. But who is the new leader of Armenia and why did he manage to seize absolute power in the country in such a short time?

Who is Mr. Pashinian?

Born in 1975, Nikol Pashinian is the youngest state leader in the entire post-Soviet space. Objectively, this makes it possible for him to know and use the experience of the older generation, as well as to feel the desires of the younger generation of Armenians. It is the generation of social networks that has become the driving force behind the April protests leading to the resignation of the ‘invincible’ Serzh Sargsyan. The age of information technology has made the organization of various events (including rallies) so simple that almost anyone can do it. Everything depends only on the eloquence and seeming sincerity of a person, the features that Mr. Pashinian skilfully uses. The West has quickly learned how to use new trends to influence public consciousness. Over the past 15 years, the powerful of this world have invested considerable funds in various studies, trying to identify opportunities to use new technologies in line with their objectives. Apparently, the leading conductor of new developments in Yerevan is the US embassy and various pseudo-humanitarian foundations similar to entities controlled by Soros. Pashinian and his team have fully justified the efforts. After all, among other things, he is a professional journalist, and therefore can directly communicate with different segments of the population, especially in the mainstream media. The well-known Armenian newspaper Haikakan Zhamanak headed by Pashinian and his wife have mercilessly criticised the Sargsyan regime for many years and has been almost closed several times. A short prison sentence for organising protests against the government raised the reputation of Pashinian as an “implacable oppositionist.” This was his trump card in the struggle for power.

Ambiguous art of PR

Over the past six months, the name of Pashinian has become increasingly popular throughout the post-Soviet space. Any search engine in the Russian-speaking segment of the Internet gives a huge number of different articles with reference to the new Armenian leader.

Every knowledgeable person knows that 90% of modern journalism is a means of propaganda, PR. You just need to attract attention. Pashinian's seemingly emotional attacks on opponents are in fact carefully planned and serve only one purpose - to strengthen the image of the “ideological fighter”. Pashinian has skilfully demonstrated his abilities during the election of a new CSTO head. His scathing phrases addressed to the renowned leaders of the post-Soviet space, Lukashenko and Nazarbayev, could not alter the real state of affairs and only added a few points to the revolutionary reputation of Armenia in the ongoing internal political struggle. Populism, which is a long-standing invention of humankind, has not benefited anyone except those who had skilfully used it, but invaluable amount of harm. The image of the CSTO, albeit not undermined, has been slightly smeared.

Therefore, the leaders of the post-Soviet space are trying to show the ‘smarty pant’ his place, especially at the last EAEU and CIS summit in St. Petersburg. Pashinian was practically ignored here: no one wanted to discuss important topics with him, and many leaders even shied away from standard photo session.

Strangely enough, Pashinian could turn even the actual obstruction to his advantage just before the elections in Armenia. Crumpled and sad, he created in St. Petersburg an image of a boy “offended” by the authorities. This cunny image was created very craftily for the flawed mentality of Armenian nationals, oppressed by the ruling years of the Karabakh Clan. “Lo, that’s our guy!” screamed the “long-suffering” republic and hurried to vote for her shame.

Usually, however, the limit of public confidence given to populist leaders rapidly diminishes as soon as they come to power. Because the population expects that PR should somehow and eventually materialise into something more useful than words, such as economic prosperity, which is impossible without cash injections from external resources. Accordingly, the enslavement of Armenia will not stop, but, on the contrary, intensify.

Today, PR is a kind of popularity game, which has its positive and negative sides. Popularity is directly proportional to the growth of followers and inversely proportional to a quiet, free life. Popularity is quite easily predicted and often brings a lot of money from those who are trying to make a profit at the expense of someone else's PR. But a person, receiving money from the outside, loses his freedom once and for all. Hence the answer to the question “can unfree Pashinian bring freedom to Armenia?” is quite obvious.

Armenians voted with their feet

One of the peculiarities of voting in Armenia was a record low turnout. According to the data of the Armenian CEC, it reached only 48.63%, that is, less than half of the total number of voters. In contrast to the parliamentary elections of 2017 (a turnout of 60.86%), about 1.5 million Armenians decided to ignore the elections. Many analysts consider such a will of the people to be quite natural and point to two reasons. The first is that the majority of Armenians expect too much from Russia, unlike Pashinian who had shaped his election rhetoric to counteract with the Russian influence. According to statistics, about two million Armenian citizens are permanently or temporarily located in the Russian Federation. Those who stayed in their homeland receive financial assistance from ‘Russian’ relatives. It turns out that the active civil position of the Armenians in the spring of 2018 hesitated when it came to real cuts in material assistance from 1/7 of the land. Cash infusions that are steadily channeled by the Armenian diaspora from other parts of the world go more into the budget of Armenia than directly into the pockets of citizens. Here, the word says "hereditary" distrust of the Armenians in their leadership.

The second reason for the low turnout is that Armenian population is simply tired of political processes. Ordinary citizens do not know the subtleties of politics, and they already want to see the fruits of their aspirations. On the other hand, the defeat of the supporters of the Republican Party was so obvious that many Armenians considered the “work done” and did not doubt the victory of the Pashinian bloc. Armenian nationals suffering from economic chaos have more urgent problems than exhausting campaigns at polling stations. Pashinian indirectly confirmed this by introducing his close relatives into the new parliament.

No revenge

Another sensation of the Armenian elections was a failure of the Republican Party and their allies from Dashnaktsutyun, the political hegemons of recent years, to pass to the parliament. This was indeed a crushing defeat. The hopes of the “Karabakh clan” for some kind of political revenge can be forgotten now. It is unlikely that international organisations listen to innuendo of the Republican Party on the “dishonest game” (hinting at Kocharian’s arrest) and “deliberately stirring up an atmosphere of hatred”. They already note that the elections in Armenia “for the first time were held under open political competition and fair struggle.” Such joyful statements from the West are understandable, because the overwhelming majority of the new Armenian deputies have studied and worked abroad and connected with Europe and the USA.

Under current conditions, the centuries-old ally of Armenia, Russia, has to rely on the oligarch Gagik Tsarukian and his party Prosperous Armenia. The owner of the Russian orders of Dmitry Donskoy and St. Anne, the businessman has considerable assets in Russia and Belarus. Tsarukian is a kind of Armenian Ivanishvili in the Transcaucasian policy of the Kremlin. Although he is called in Armenia as Gagik the Benefactor, his political stance is not as strong as that of his Georgian counterpart. Armenians consider him a rather cruel person and “a friend of Kocharian,” which sounds a rather dubious reputation. Now Russian political consultants will have to work hard on the image of Tsarukian and people close to him. Regardless of doubtful statements coming from Moscow about the relevancy of such an ungrateful and unreliable ally as Armenia, Russia is unlikely to give free rein to Armenia in the near future.