End the stalemate now…before the damage is irreparable!

It was with great disappointment that I read this week, like many of you, that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and his parliamentary majority (My Step alliance) have backed away from the proposal of holding snap parliamentary elections. Frankly, our feelings about Pashinyan are somewhat secondary. After the devastating losses from the Artsakh War, the issue before us is about recovery and how best to move the nation forward. Clearly, the Armenian people have several opinions about who should be empowered to lead the country. For a variety of different reasons at least, a strong plurality seems to have lost confidence in the current prime minister to politically recover and continue leadership. Some are motivated by a return of the reactionary forces of the recent past. For others, it is simply unacceptable for a government that lost so much territory and so many young lives in defeat to continue. Still others hope to gain some semblance of power in the vacuum created by the exit of the Pashinyan government. What I find particularly distasteful is that all of the forces in play seem to covet power and politics more than the stability of the country. Contributing to the current instability and vulnerability is not a patriotic act. Whether they care to admit it or not, the current government operates like a lame duck administration. Confidence in the Prime Minister is low, yet he continues in denial by believing that attitudes will recover. What the political forces are ignoring is the longer the standoff goes on between the My Step alliance and the “group of 17” opposition, the third and most important party, the common citizens, will suffer. This is unacceptable to any Armenian with regard to the future.

Since November, Armenians have been represented in the trilateral talks with Russia and Azerbaijan by a defeated government. Regardless of the government publishing six-month recovery plans and participating in diplomatic forums, they carry very little leverage. Azerbaijan, basking in their criminal assault, regards Armenia as a defeated enemy. Russia operates as a surrogate parent disciplining a wayward child. The opposition and internal confusion in the government only further emboldens the other parties to seal the details before Armenia politically recovers. In that regard, Pashinyan’s refusal to support new elections is enabling this subordination. We don’t view the Sargsyan era with fondness, but at least he resigned after realizing that he was an obstacle and had few options. This led to a constitutionally driven process of new elections with Pashinyan emerging as the Prime Minister.