Difficult Choices for a Recovering Armenia

It is a significant understatement to say that it has been a trying year for the Republic of Armenia. The Velvet Revolution came to a crashing and somewhat cynical halt as Armenia and its diaspora absorbed the crushing losses from the 44-day war and its worst political crisis in decades. No need to repeat the painful details. What matters is that the electorate in Armenia and its supporting cast in the diaspora agree that the future of Armenia is at stake. This is not campaign rhetoric. The Turkish alliance is intoxicated with aggression created by its criminal gains in late 2020 and the resulting political chaos in Armenia. With Azeri jackals violating the doorstep of sovereign territory in Syunik and an awkward dependence on power/peace broker Russia, Armenia’s short term priority is stability: economically and politically.

After weeks of political wrangling, an “agreement” was reached to hold snap parliamentary elections on June 20 that will determine the future leadership of the country. Armenia is currently in “caretaker” mode as the Constitution prescribes to prepare for the national elections. Parliament, controlled by Pashinyan’s My Step Alliance, orchestrated the required two attempts to elect a PM that led to the caretaker government (until the elections in June) and its subsequent dissolution. It is important to recognize that in parallel with this crisis, the National Assembly also pushed through a major change to the electoral code. Members of parliament will be elected in a rank order from a closed party/alliance list or what is called a full proportional system. This is in contrast to the prior system where MPs were chosen by an equal distribution of national party and individual lists in the regions. Opposition leaders claim that this change may give the My Step alliance an advantage since they currently control a majority in the parliament and have suffered only a few defections during the current crisis. Armenia only has a few political factions beyond the majority My Step Alliance that are represented in parliament. They are the opposition Bright Armenia and Prosperous Armenia parties. Many of the parties and alliances seeking office in the June elections currently do not hold mandates. The vast majority of the 17 opposition groups that have led much of the opposition to Pashinyan since the second Artsakh War do not currently hold seats in Parliament.