ARMENIAN ROULETTE

Formally, the existing period in Armenia should be called an election campaign. New early parliamentary elections has been slated for June 20, 2021. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has resigned. In fact, he remains the acting prime minister until the day of elections. And, perhaps, we should have seen news about electional rallies, interviews, debates, meetings with voters, etc. in information reports from Armenia. But…

Unreported reset

It is enough to take a quick look at the situation in Armenia to understand that the election campaign actually stopped. Just a few weeks ago, there were rallies of protesters, alliances of opposition factions trying to decide upon and nominate a single candidate. Experts were studying the new configuration of political forces in Armenia when everything unexpectedly changed. The single candidate of the opposition Vazgen Manukyan lays low. He does not travel around the country, nor does he give interviews or hold rallies. The opposition expressed extreme dissatisfaction with Nikol Pashinyan opting for "resignation without resignation". It went into the shadow without explaining what it was going to change in the country should it won the election. Pashinyan’s party is not in a hurry to express their program either. Over the past three years, Armenia has been fed up with lots of unrealised promises, plans, forecasts and programs. The lost war is not a good background for promises either. There is nothing looking like debates in the country. Yet there are some peripheral discussions in the media about election lists, but no actual interest in the election. The focus of the Armenian information space has shifted onto completely different storylines.

The headlines these days are all about Robert Kocharian, who holds meetings with his supporters and discusses the most relevant problems of Armenia, including the relations with Russia and the issues of security. He even made a snarky remark addressed to Pashinyan: "Authorities say that Russia has an obligation under the bilateral agreement to protect us as our military-political ally. That’s true, but a military-political ally means that both sides have an army. It means under a contract, you jointly create a military union, which you join with your own army and Russia with its own one. If your army is unfit [for active military service], if the state of your army is what we have  today, it means we must declare our inability to protect ourselves, letting Russia do this for us. In this case, you must change your status…" Then, Kocharian criticised Pashinyan: "Have you heard in the past six months of any discussion in the National Assembly on the issues of our security? Have you seen any government decision regarding our armed forces? They only talk about reforms that nobody understands.”

Army as a topic of internal political discussions

Army is a very painful issue for Pashinyan. He has failed to come to terms with his generals. Arrests of generals, purges in the army with accusations of generals of corruption, etc. should have helped Nikol Pashinyan to strengthen control over the army. Nevertheless, this only helped create an anti-Pashinyan bloc in the army.

And now the situation has worsened. In addition to suffering from a crushing defeat in Garabagh, the Armenian army lost the commanders and the fleet of armoured vehicles, which will not be easy to restore quickly. Kocharian was one of the first to voice these problems, while Pashinyan’s team was remaining silent. The Armenian army no longer exists as an effective combat structure able to ensure the safety of the country. Nevertheless, it remains a significant tool in domestic politics. Local generals have been drawn into political discussions since the failed coup led by Onik Gasparyan. For obvious reasons, the main question is: Who is responsible for the defeat in Garabagh and individual failure operations?

Nikol Pashinyan has been accused of everything until quite recently. According to Gasparyan, it was Pashinyan, who ordered to attack the Height of Leletepe, thereby breaking the back of the Armenian army. Moreover, even during the first days of the war the generals warned Pashinyan about the bad state of affairs on the frontline but Pashinyan ordered to continue the fight, which led Armenia to a disaster.

In his address to parliamentarians, Pashinyan made a series of revelations, with the news agencies quoting his statements avidly. Pashinyan accused Gasparyan of failing to stop the combat operations: "At a meeting of the Security Council held on September 30, the head of the General Staff said that the army fulfils its mission well, and the enemy could not succeed."

Pashinyan also criticised his predecessors: in terms of the development of critical infrastructure Armenia lags behind Azerbaijan (10:1). And Armenia began the development of its military-industrial complex in April 2016, that is 11 years after Azerbaijan. "In 2017, Azerbaijan had two satellites, including one for collecting intel data. Yes, Azerbaijan purchased an intelligence satellite, while the Armenian authorities were buying lands in Europe, in the Greek Islands, wherever they could do," Pashinyan said. There was also an audio footage of Onik Gasparyan’s statement (edited version), where he reports to Pashinyan that the army was capable of fulfilling its mission. Yet the audio does not seem to contain anything that would hint on Gasparyan’s current alarmist clamour.

The Zangezur trap

Perhaps after the speech of Pashinyan in the parliament, many experts thought that it was a good PR move, which allowed him to lay the blame for the military failures onto the generals and to leave the ‘battleground’ with minimal damage. But the situation has changed again. This time Pashinyan made a fatal mistake by visiting Zangezur.

Just before this, the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said: "The construction of the Zangezur corridor fully meets our national, historical and future interests. We will implement this project  whether Armenia likes it or not. If it does, it will be easier. Otherwise, we will solve the issue by force. Just like I said before and during the war – [Armenian invaders] must leave our lands willingly, or we will make them leave by force. So it happened. The fate of the Zangezur corridor will be the same."

This statement caused a real panic in Armenia, especially amid Armenia’s explicit attempts to disrupt the implementation of agreements on the creation of the Zangezur corridor. Yerevan was absolutely unprepared to hear about the ‘cost of the issue’ from President Aliyev. Thus, Pashinyan decided to personally visit Zangezur, hence making a fatal mistake. This led to protests and riots in Zangezur, with protesters shouting curses and throwing eggs at Pashinyan’s car. In response, Pashinyan ordered to arrest the foul-mouthed protesters. This was followed by protests in Yerevan. Even the first president of Armenia, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, criticised Pashinian, calling his Zangezur's voyage a manifestation of sadism and shamelessness.

Obviously, Pashinyan’s rivals are tempted to use his failure in Zangezur against him. But at the same time, they understand well that Armenia will have to fulfil the terms of the agreement on the Zangezur corridor anyway. So not only Pashinyan is unable of getting out of the Zangezur trap.