Armenian political crisis deepens

President Sarkisyan's resignation leaves the field open to Prime Minister Pushinyan. The prime minister has been accused of yielding to Azerbaijan and Turkey. Fears of an authoritarian drift in Yerevan.

Moscow (AsiaNews) - The resignation at the end of January of President Armen Sarkisyan has further exacerbated political clashes in Armenia's young democracy. The former head of state explained in recent days that he had resigned due to a "lack of powers" attributed to his role, and moved to the Caribbean islands of Saint Kitts and Nevis, where it was discovered he already held a third citizenship, in addition to the British one that was already known.

In Novaja Gazeta, Stepan Grigoryan, the former Armenian ambassador to Russia and now a political scientist, says that 'in certain countries like ours, in addition to written agreements, verbal ones are very important, as happened in the change of presidency between Serz Sargsyan and Armen Sarkisyan, who was promised that as president he would be responsible for attracting investment to Armenia and would play an important role in foreign policy'.

Sarkisyan was elected in 2018, and in recent years has had to find a way to work with Prime Minister Nikol Pašinyan, protagonist of the "velvet revolution" and then of the defeat with Azerbaijan in Nagorno Karabakh, then confirmed in the early elections of 2021. The Pašinyan government has blocked all of the president's initiatives, using the popular legitimacy it still enjoys despite many contradictions. However, Grigoryan warns that 'even a revolutionary government needs control by the other powers of the state'.

The Pašinyan administration is heavily criticised, among other things for the lack of competence of its members, chosen from 'civil society', who do not seem to be able to cope with the tremendous challenges of recent years.

"I spoke to an important member of the ruling party,' Grigoryan explains, 'and he said: if Azerbaijan has 1,000 tanks, Turkey 10,000 and we only have 300, we have to do what they want. I told him that Luxembourg doesn't have any, but lives in peace between France and Germany.

After Pašinyan's confirmation, the resigning president did not have the strength to continue the confrontation, and joined the destructive criticism of the opposition, together with the Armenian Church, the University of Yerevan and the Academy of Sciences. It is precisely the rigidity of the intellectual, cultural and political elite that has further strengthened popular support for the prime minister, whose resignation was all they were asking for, without proposing any alternatives or compromises.

Sarkisyan sent his resignation letter from London, before flying to the Caribbean, and this contemptuous attitude attracted even more discontent among the population. Pašinyan had good reason to exasperate the former president after his war defeat in 2020, when it became clear that he wanted to get rid of him, which he could not do through parliamentary channels where he would need 75% of the votes (he now controls 67% anyway).

Grigoryan and several other commentators maintain the crisis has deepened as Pushinyan is about to conclude new agreements on Nagorno Karabakh, giving in on many points in order to close the disputes with Azeris and Turks. Above all, it seems inevitable that Karabakh will be recognised as part of Azerbaijan, 'since the whole world now recognises it', as the Armenian Prime Minister himself recently stated, something that the opposition and Armenian high society are not prepared to accept.

With Turkey, the head of government would be willing to stop insisting on denouncing the genocide of the early 1900s, arguing that "the Armenian diaspora, rather than national institutions, must deal with this". Road accesses to Nakhičevan would be opened, allowing Turkey to communicate directly with Azerbaijan.

Finally, Pushinyan could try to replace Sarkisyan with a person loyal to him, making a democratic "short circuit" similar to those he denounced at the time of the "velvet revolution". In this way, Grigoryan concludes, "he too would turn into a kind of autocrat, and I do not think he would enjoy the current consensus for much longer".