Pundit: Armenia sliding towards authoritarianism

Armenian political analyst Hrant Mikayelyan has said that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is trying with all his might to achieve authoritarian rule in the country, including using foreign support.

The protesters who instigated the unrest in France have been attacking officials and authorities, their family members and even distant relatives. And Macron was publicly hit by a woman last year and was not prosecuted for it, Caliber.Az reports, citing the Yerevan-based Hraparak newspaper.

Political scientist Hrant Mikayelian was asked about this, why in France, a bastion of democracy, the authorities can be lenient towards the real crimes of their own citizens, while in Armenia, a "bastion of democracy", they detain a citizen for assessing Pashinyan's activities, calling him a traitor, a capitulator or insulting him. Does this mean that Armenia has embarked on the path of authoritarianism?”

The political analyst believes that the cases and situations in France and Armenia are not comparable, as Armenia has a semi-authoritarian system.

"Direct parallels can be drawn in terms of attitudes towards personalities, but if you look at the political context, it is very different," Mikayelyan said.

“Mikaelyan believes that Pashinyan is trying with all his might to achieve authoritarian rule, and despite the fact that the media, courts, parliament, etc. are under significant pressure, in any case, there are no resources for the consolidation of authoritarianism in Armenia yet. Pashinyan is still trying to use foreign support as a resource, but this is not enough, it is not a financial resource and foreign support is very conditional.

Thus, this semi-authoritarian state was created, which is a rather broad concept, that is, there can be many shades of semi-authoritarian. For example, you can consider Russia authoritarian, probably starting from 2021 or 2020, but before that Russia was also a semi-authoritarian regime, but now authoritarianism has strengthened there. And this consolidation lasted 20 years.

Now in Armenia, there is a process of consolidation, there is an experience of semi-democracy or even semi-consolidated democracy, which was partially formed earlier, and power was divided between the teams. Armenia still has a long way to go to be considered consolidated authoritarianism, but it is moving in that direction,” the article says.

The newspaper writes that, according to the political analyst, the authorities are trying to establish online control and monitoring of the Internet, computers and other technical devices as part of the consolidation of authoritarianism.

There is pressure in the field of advertising, on sociological companies, but it will take a long time for complete consolidation to take place because Pashinyan does not yet have enough resources to do so, he says.

"Pashinyan's desire for consolidated authoritarianism is evident when he divides into black and white, when he accuses the media or publicists of saying certain things. But we should understand that we are still far away from complete authoritarianism because there are still more or less independent media and it's not that there are few of them, but their number is constantly decreasing, their circulation is decreasing, and the government is working in this direction with the support of foreign partners," Mikayelyan concluded.