Inner sanctum of Pashinyan's governance

US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s highly-publicised trip to Yerevan has already bolstered Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s image on the international stage, significantly contributing to the perception of Armenia as a democracy. Pollsters also predict that this strongly-worded American support will provide electoral advantages for the present government in due course, with some observers being more cautious in their expectations.

Modern Armenia may not be a fully-fledged liberal democracy in the best Western tradition, however, it is acknowledged by many that the country has made a significant progress since the Velvet Revolution of 2018 that saw the Russian-aligned former President Serzh Sargsyan lose power and charismatic journalist Nikol Pashinyan's rise to power amidst enthusiastic public support.

After Armenia fell from the euphoric high of the Velvet Revolution due to a new low, following its defeat in the war against Azerbaijan in November 2020, Pashinyan’s challenges have increased. His reformist zeal has been tempered by the necessity of consolidating his own grip on power, which some believe has led to "executive aggrandisement". In June 2021, he won the parliamentary election, securing his mandate, albeit not with a landslide magnitude as was the case in December 2018.

Pelosi, in her statement on the conclusion of the Congressional Delegation to Yerevan, dated 19 September, described Armenia “an important front in the battle between democracy and autocracy”, and expressed her support “for Armenia’s democracy”, declaring “a clear message of America’s commitment to Armenia”.

The opposition, linked to the former leadership, was quick to describe Pelosi's three-day stay as an impromptu summit to bolster Pashinyan's standing at home and abroad. The US Speaker of the House of Representatives was given a hero’s reception, with Yerevan’s central streets being “silenced” by blaring sirens and strobing lights.

The “Armenia Alliance", led by former President Robert Kocharyan, which currently has 29 seats in the National Assembly, has long been trying to push Pashinyan off the fence he has been straddling during his tenure. However appreciative they may be of the backing of Pelosi for Armenia on the international stage, the Speaker's "interference" within the internal rivalry left a bitter taste.

This incursion into the true state of 'Armenian democracy', however, would require a wider view.  The opposition's embittered vitriolics should inform one's thinking, for the sake of seeing a perspective contrary to one perpetuated by the government itself, but to an extent. In this vein, Pelosi's praise should not be taken at face value. Despite containing a grain of truth, it is also an endorsing gesture guided by policy considerations. 

A more nuanced approach presents a different picture. Freedom House, for instance, has designated the country as a ‘semi-consolidated authoritarian regime’ with a ‘Democracy Score’ of 33 out of 100. Armenia is still not considered as "an electoral democracy", due to its low ratings in the classifications of "political rights" and "civil liberties".

Executive aggrandisement

The Constitution of 2015, which Pashinyan himself once described as "a jacket tailored for Serzh Sargsyan", is still in force. Switching a presidential republic into a parliamentary one may, at first glance, appear to constitute a move towards a more pluralistic governance, but this was not the motivation for the former Armenian President's rationale at the time, as he rather was intent on prolonging his tenure at the top.

Pashinyan, after his ascendance to power, instead of dismantling the previous constitutional arrangement, built upon its core structure to increase the power of the office of the Prime Minister, rendering the Presidential institute largely ceremonial.

It is expected that the Constitution will not be amended till December 2023 and any change that could be made will be along the lines of executive aggrandisement. Critics suggest the Prime Minister may go further in entrenching the parliamentary system.

Clinging to the principle of “the dictatorship of the rule of law”,  Pashinyan bolstered the National Security Office as the highest decision-making and law-enforcement body, filling it with his trusted appointees. Nevertheless, since the basic cadre of managers remained the same, the new philosophy of the “Civil Contract”, comprising Pashinyan’s party with a majority government, earned the unseemly appellation of "moderate progress within the bounds of law", re-echoing the damning expostulation of Czech satirist Jaroslav Hasek.

Human rights

Some of the legal mechanisms employed by Pashinyan have made civil society activists, who had thought that the days of authoritarianism in Armenia were over, reconsider their verdicts. The present system is far more nuanced. In Pashinyan's Armenia, "direct repression" seems to have been replaced by "stealth authoritarianism".

For instance, in the wake of the anti-government protests, the National Assembly has enacted harsher penalties for insults and defamation of $5,700 and $11,400 respectively.  The fines are exorbitant for any domestic journalist or activist whose monthly earnings remain significantly below what they may be expected to pay in the case of finding themselves in the wrath of this new draconical law.

Moreover, there have been instances of governmental prosecutors interpreting the slogans made against Pashinyan himself from the guise of defamation, giving rise to fears that the present government is a virtual clone of the previous leadership. Having said this, the government's initial intention was to criminalise the defamation of state officials, which was later retracted in view of its excessive regressiveness. 

Commentator Kami Arabian of Dartmouth College believes that for fear of upsetting his international reputation, "Pashinyan has resorted to authoritarian practices that are difficult for domestic and foreign actors to detect". 

The latest Human Rights Watch report suggests that, although the political turmoil caused by the war against Azerbaijan in 2020 was, to a large extent, diffused by the June 2021 snap elections, "domestic violence, discrimination against people with disabilities, barriers to effective pain treatment and palliative care, and violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity persist". And, in its attempts to combat incidents of hate speech, the government has resorted to "regulations which may undermine freedom of speech".

The report also suggests that “torture and ill-treatment in custody remain a problem and are often perpetrated with impunity", with "criminal investigations being launched in response to allegations of torture that are rarely effective".

Judiciary remains unreformed

Judicial reforms were at the forefront of the Armenian leader's "renewal" pledge, yet very little has been achieved. No breakthrough has been made regarding the vetting of judges and the relevant integrity checks.

Since the Velvet Revolution, one of the main hindrances for Pashinyan's government has been to change the composition of the Constitutional Court, regarded as the most visible vestige of the former regime, applying a reformist agenda whilst respecting the principle of the irremovability of judges and the independence of the judiciary.

In a rare self-reflexive moment, Pashinyan referred to his policy of renewing the state machine as "the purge", unwittingly earning for himself the sobriquet of a "would-be-authoritarian". In his attempts to apprehend former high-ranking officials and the remnants of the former regime within his government, he faced massive backlash from the judiciary, with judges overruling his demands. 

In the end, the methods employed, such as pressurising judges to resign on their own volition, but under "implicit duress", and the fundamental inability to achieve overall progress, have led to the present state, which is a preponderantly unreformed judiciary.

The Venice Commission, in its March 2022 opinion statement, acknowledged that the current Armenian legislation, including the Law on the Constitutional Court, did not address the issue of radical reforms of the Judiciary, particularly in terms of its composition. 

Elephant in the room

Pashinyan was the first Armenian leader who came to power with an agenda in which the conflict over Karabakh - the territory with Armenian majority which is internationally-recognised as part of Azerbaijan - was not a central issue. The war of 2020, in which Azerbaijan regained the control of its formerly occupied territories, resulted in deadly consequences for Armenia, ushering in a period of political crisis, exacerbated by economic difficulties and additional burdens brought about by Covid-19 restrictions.

The Russian-brokered tripartite ceasefire deal ended hostilities on 10 November 2020, but regular escalations alongside the state border between the two countries and the lack of a peace treaty continue to be an impediment to Armenia's progress. The difficulty is that Pashinyan, in order to fulfill his reformist vow, needs to stay in power, and agreeing to a peace deal may prove largely unpopular with his electorate and the international Armenia diaspora, threatening the current government's prospects.

In addition to its continuing economic impact, the unresolved issues with Azerbaijan mean that the domestic political debate, instead of focusing on socio-legal reforms and an anti-corruption agenda, is irresistibly drawn to the external danger, in response to which the nation remains divided.

The opposition, deeply opposed to any deal with Baku, has consistently shifted the parliamentary discourse on reforms, maintaining a hyper-survivalist posture, focusing on discussions on the possibility of a new war to reverse the consequences of the previous conflict, and lambasting Pashinyan for betraying Armenia's national interests and compromising its dignity.

All in all, a brief hiatus in the tensions with Azerbaijan will be insufficient; the atmospherics have to change on a more solid basis, otherwise Pashinyan’s ambitious domestic agenda will continue to be hampered by the opposition, whose rhetoric is centered around the Karabakh issue. As long as Pashinyan has not concluded a peace with the old nemesis - Azerbaijan - internal politics will continue to be dominated by demagoguery and outcries aimed at tapping into the public's insecurities. The net effect will undermine the transition into a robust democracy that the Velvet Revolution once potentially promised.

It should not be forgotten that Armenia, despite the recent American endorsement, which Speaker Pelosi's trip has renewed, remains firmly within the orbit of Russian influence, sometimes finding itself a factotum for the Kremlin's wonts, as evidenced in Yerevan's involvement in the Kremlin-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) response to the crisis in Kazakhstan in January 2022. The challenge for Pashinyan is to navigate between its alliance obligations towards Moscow and internal reforms, albeit opposed mainly by those with close links to Russia, and this is unlikely to be diffused anytime soon.