Armenian elections with a hint of bots What Karapetyan’s political project is built on

Armenia’s domestic political landscape has long been permeated by the anticipation of the parliamentary elections scheduled for this summer, which experts believe will be decisive for the country’s future.

Alongside the ruling Civil Contract party — which, notably, secured 53.92% of the vote in the 2021 elections — the pre-election race now includes both long-familiar opposition blocs and new players. Among them is a political structure created by Russian-Armenian oligarch Samvel Karapetyan, who is currently under investigation in Yerevan on charges of calling for the seizure of power and money laundering.

Karapetyan, naturally, denies any wrongdoing. Yet he is clearly eager to seize power in Armenia and spares no expense in pursuing this goal. The distribution of funds is overseen by his nephew, Narek Karapetyan, dubbed in the republic “uncle’s bun.”

Narek handles this unofficially, while officially he serves as a member of the Political Council of the Strong Armenia party and coordinator of the movement tellingly named “Mer Dzevov” (“Our Way”), that is, the Armenian way. This immediately raises an awkward question: do other political parties in Armenia operate in some non-Armenian way? In any case, how exactly things are done “our way” has already been demonstrated by this well-fed man in his prime and his team.

The issue is that Facebook blocked Narek Karapetyan’s page after the platform’s security system detected artificially inflated likes and comments generated through fake accounts — in other words, a bot factory. As is well known, Facebook responds swiftly and harshly to such violations, blocking accounts regardless of status or past achievements.

This episode clearly demonstrates the methods by which the political project of “Tashir Samo” — the nickname used in Armenia for Samvel Karapetyan — intends to come to power: through vote-buying, the use of “dead souls,” manipulation, provocations and hysteria. The latter was convincingly illustrated by Narek Karapetyan’s press secretary, Marianna Ghahramanyan, who, according to several Armenian media outlets, oversees the purchase of bots that ultimately led to the blocking of her boss’s account. She responded by blaming the Armenian government for the ban.

Frankly speaking, any Armenian citizen is free to criticise Nikol Pashinyan if dissatisfied — pluralism of opinion does exist in the country. However, in this specific case, the current prime minister, to borrow a line from a popular comedy sketch, is “absolutely not guilty.” On the contrary, the attempt by Karapetyan’s associates to shift responsibility onto the authorities may even be viewed as a peculiar compliment to the Armenian leadership — implying they wield influence powerful enough to sway Mark Zuckerberg himself.

Thus, we are witnessing a vivid example of what an election campaign “Karapetyan-style” looks like. In essence, it is a scenario in which a Moscow-backed emissary — who amassed his fortune, among other things, through privileged access to a strategic sector of Armenia’s economy, namely electricity distribution, secured during a politically motivated privatisation — seeks to seize power.

This model represents a form of oligarchic exploitation underpinning the “philosophy” of the strategy pursued by Samvel Karapetyan’s political project and his “pampered nephew,” both seemingly prepared to resort to falsifications, manipulation, and even the mass deployment of bots to achieve their ambitions.

Whether Armenia needs such self-serving figures at its helm is a question its citizens will soon answer. Yet there are reasons to believe that the Armenian people will make the right choice in favour of a stable and secure future.