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Armenian News Network - Groong: Week In Review Podcast
Arthur Martirosyan - After the Anger, What Next? | Ep 557, Jun 10, 2026
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Conversations on Groong - June 10, 2026
In this episode of Conversations on Groong, we speak with Arthur G. Martirosyan about Armenia's contested 2026 Armenian Parliamentary Election and Pashinyan's path to a third term. We discuss whether the vote was free and fair, how state pressure and Western backing shaped the outcome, the razor-thin thresholds that determine parliamentary representation, Pashinyan's post-election crackdown against the Established Opposition, and what a Civil Contract supermajority would mean for Armenia's governance and the Armenia-Azerbaijan Peace Process.
Topics:
- Contested results and thresholds
- Pashinyan's post-election crackdown
- Western backing and interference
- Russia's delayed pressure campaign
- Opposition choices after the vote
Guest: Arthur G. Martirosyan
Hosts:
Episode 557 | Recorded: June 9, 2026
SHOW NOTES: https://podcasts.groong.org/557
#ArmenianElections #Armenia #NikolPashinyan #CivilContract #StrongArmenia #ArmenianOpposition
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Hello, everyone, and welcome to this Conversations on Groong episode. Today, we are discussing the aftermath of the elections in Armenia with our guest, Arthur G. Martirosyan, who is a specialist in international conflict management with CM Partners. Arthur Martirosyan, welcome to the Groong Podcast.
Arthur:Thank you for having me. Good to see you guys.
Asbed:Mr. Martirosyan, we've been covering the events leading up to the elections that created a very uneven playing field. Over the past five years, we've documented one scandal or tragedy after another at the hands of this regime. But at the end of the day, as of today, this is June 9th, the de facto leader who started his term in 2021 with the promise of de-occupying Shushi and Hadrud and instead ended up handing Artsakh, all of Artsakh, to Azerbaijan and is basking in the glow of his support from the West, unconditional support, a blank check. He's now preparing to lead Armenia for another five years. While the results are not final, The results are definitely being contested by the opposition, but the CEC is run by a long-time crony of Pashinyan, Vahagn Hovakimyan, who started his professional life as an assistant of Pashinyan at his paper, Haykakan Zhamanak, the Armenian Times. The CEC has provided the following numbers. Civil Contract is at 49.825%. Strong Armenia is at 23.281%. And Armenia Alliance is at 9.934%. You might be saying, why three digits? Because Prosperous Armenia actually crossed the threshold of 4% to get into Parliament, but then suddenly the numbers got readjusted to 3.996, just 50 to 75 votes. of votes short of them making into the Parliament and are reasons that we are going to talk about because that makes a difference that if prosperous Armenia's votes are reallocated or rather mandates are reallocated to the three parties that make it into Parliament then suddenly there's this issue that Pashinyan could have three-fifths majority or trying to go for two-thirds majority and that's going to be important we'll talk about that a little bit later But Prosperous Armenia has already contested. I think actually I read yesterday Robert Kocharyan and the Karapetyans and also have contested the results they want a recount. I mean, it's kind of obvious that that needs to be done because in an environment where there were a crazy 17,000 invalidated ballots, we have a shortfall of 50 to 75. It just doesn't make sense not to have a recount. What's your overall assessment? How did we arrive at what we have today? And do you think that we had a free and fair election?
Arthur:Well, let me start with fair and free. The Schumpeterian definition, or minimalist definition of democracy is free and fair elections, regular free and fair elections. And when he talked about regular free and fair elections, he didn't mean the election day only. It's pre-election time, election day, and then what happens after the elections. Do they have a recourse? Kind of recounting. But we were in that point in 21. In 21, opposition again challenged the results, they applied to the Constitutional Court, and there was no decision made to favor the opposition even a bit. So I think the most difficult issue for me personally, and I'm sure that for the nation, is that in 2018 the so-called Velvet Revolution came with the promise that in Armenia power can be changed through elections. What we've observed in this particular election, although in 21 already were very worrisome signs about the free and fair components of the elections. But this time I can say that if anyone had a hope that power in Armenia can be changed through elections, forget about it. They did everything to show that they are there to stay, and they're there to stay for a long time. Because they have the outside support. Whatever happens, the West is going to close their eyes, because they found erroneous, but powerful frame for these elections. They said whoever is against Pashinyan is pro-Russian, and it closes any conversation. Well, there is a pro-Russian party. Well, I mean, you can say that they are pro-Russian, although when you look at their program, what they say, they're talking about balanced foreign policy. They're not saying We want to become Russia's province or our relations are going to be with Russia only. No, but simply because through the association of personalities, they make this claim. And even today, The Economist was coming very heavily on the opposition leader, saying that they do not even have a program, and presenting Pashinyan and his party as the only truly pro-Western group in Armenia. Why is this done? Because Pashinyan and his group are satisfying their interests. They're doing everything to show that they are going to go all the way. They're not ready to disrupt their relations with Russia instantaneously, but their intention is that, and they are taking Armenia to that place. And nothing can be more kind of satisfactory for the Western players than that. So they're ready to condone any violations of the—Macron has already said that it's democracy has won in Armenia. That's his comment about elections. And if you look at the quality of the process, especially the electoral stuff, there are complaints. I haven't been able to review everything and we'll see what the number, the quantity will matter, obviously. But there are some violations that certainly speak volumes about the fairness of the process. But when you look at the pre-electoral part, of the elections in Armenia. Definitely numerous violations, repressions, people arrested, scores of people arrested, right? Absolutely. Laws violated. For instance, on public television, which is entirely controlled by the powers that be in Armenia, they would show the short clips with conversations that were eavesdropped, presumably people talking about how they're going to pay others to participate in the, so essentially about corruption and bribery. Okay, question number one, who gave you the permission to eavesdrop people? Well, presumably you have a court Right. So you have the court decision to do that. But even if you have the court decision to eavesdrop on people, you do not have the right to publicize it until the evidence is presented in the court and the court has made the decision. We don't have any of that.
Asbed:Absolutely. Absolutely. We've said that from the rooftops ourselves.
Hovik:And amazingly, none of those wiretaps that have been leaked somehow to the press contain, you know, Civil Contract members talking about bribes, you know, which is I mean,
Arthur:That's obvious. When the raw wiretaps, as I think the Wings of Unity party presented, if I'm not mistaken from Armavir a conversation where the I think she's the manager of the kindergarten she's talking to someone about participating in a ruling party's rally or whatever he presents that and there is no follow-up there is no
Hovik:recourse there is nothing happening really yeah no criminal case even launched I think I'm sure.
Arthur:I mean, they control. This is the problem. I think this is the fundamental problem. We presume that elections and democracy can be held in a country that is not a true republic. And Armenia is not a republic because the powers are not separated, because there are no checks and balances. All power is monopolized by one party. which is capable of making a show as if it has the institutions, the courts are independent and whatnot, and everybody knows that it is not. Pashinyan can say, arrest this guy and he will be arrested. And we had those incidents before the election.
Asbed:He can just have a posting on Facebook and that's enough for the judiciary.
Arthur:Number two, number two of the, and I don't know whether what is incriminated or what he's charged with holds any real substance, I don't know, I cannot say, but he's, that's Andranik Tevanyan, number two of the Prosperous Armenia party. So he's a very serious crime, espionage. What has he done? As if he participated in a closed session of the parliament and confidential documents he translated and passed on to our strategic partner, Russia. So he was spying for Russia, presumably. So when did you find out? Why was he arrested in the midst of the electoral process when the event you are talking about was in 24, and he quit the parliament. He was a member of the parliament, but he quit the parliament, I think, at least a year before that event that you are talking about. So can—yes, there will be a process He just said, "in our way," and our way was interpreted that it's a call for an uprising, kind of changing the constitutional regime in Armenia and whatnot. And he spent, and he still is under house arrest, but he's under arrest. for just one word, and the courts are not able to come up with a decision, one word. So they know how to get people behind the bars, and they know how to make it probably painful for them. Ashotyan is again arrested. 500 people were arrested. 500 people were arrested. Had this happened in France, And I don't think Macron or anybody would really have the word democracy coming out of their mouth. So I do not know. Again, the electoral day, let's separate it. There are some conversations in the Yerevan now about the number of violations that have been observed. I personally took some of the data from the Central Electoral Commission's site on polling, on elections in Yerevan from the various electoral districts. And I ran it by artificial intelligence. Well, the key here is to know what to ask the artificial intelligence, what to do with that data. I was looking for a correlation and I was looking for some testing, some modeling on whether or not there were cases that raise suspicion about organized voting. And organized voting can be organized by in violation of the law, certainly. I mean, I don't know of cases in Armenia where groups of people would at a certain point decide to go and 200 people together go and vote. It's impossible. Somebody tells them to go and vote. I could not tell what time, but at least eight Eight cases were Claude identified. This voting was happening in precincts where participation was above 80%, whereas the average was about 60%. So when you see that kind of data, it's always suspicious what was going on. Will they recount? I personally believe that the opposition should press very hard to get as much justice as possible here, but I personally am skeptical after 2021 elections that through legal process you're going to get things changed in the parliament.
Asbed:Not only should they demand a recount, they should actually participate in the recount themselves because it's very suspicious when previous elections have had 3,000 or 4,000 ballots that were invalidated for some reason or another. This time they have 17,000 of them. The numbers just don't add up to me.
Hovik:The issue is that there are 2,000 polling stations and it's not going to be possible to recount in all of them. I think that they have announced the recount in maybe under 100 polling stations.
Arthur:Fine, under 100 polling stations. I mean, just let's think together here. So how many votes are we talking here about? Several thousand? Ten thousand? Hundred thousand? how many votes are going to be recounted, and what would be the process, and how long it's going to take. And I think the government may even agree to do that, the ruling party, because the Central Electoral Commission, as you correctly noted, is controlled by the ruling party. Seven members, the chairman is a former member of that party and associate of Pashinyan, and there are three other Civil Contract party members in the Central Electoral Commission. Okay. So they will just drag on with time because their goal is to take it to the legal system which they entirely control. And then they will come back, and I can predict even the wording of what is going to be said. Yes, there were violations, but they didn't impact the outcome of the elections. That's it. So does this mean that they have to go what the ruling party is most concerned about right now is post-electoral social mobilization and protest. They have to do everything to dampen it. And one way to dampen it is to say, oh, there is a legal process. Okay. Rest assured that the legal system will give you the right answers and the justice will prevail. But it's not going to happen. They're just dragging time because summer has started. It's cooler than usual for summer and June in Yerevan. But July and August are going to be hot months. People are going to be out. And normally these months are very slow for any political or social activity in Yerevan. So that's the goal. They take it there, and then the question becomes whether the opposition will accept the That's an even more important question.
Asbed:We'll get to it in a second, but Arthur, actually, now that we're saying that Pashinyan seems like he has won the election, I want to air quote that. Has he achieved his objectives? He was adamant about getting a constitutional majority. Basically, he put that as a stake in the ground and he was going for it. We can see that he is working on that to achieve, if not 66%, at least 60% for some reasons. Has he achieved that?
Arthur:No, he hasn't achieved that. In fact, there was another violation of the law, and definitely political ethics, definitely. I think even of the law. Fifty percent of the votes were not counted yet. He comes out with his cronies on television and says that he has won in the elections. And that's at 15 percent, right? And the way they put the psychological pressure late at night, the counting votes, they put a graph after, and the site was constantly crashing on, coming with an error, it's not working, but then finally they put up a graph, and that graph is after counting 2%, and they've chosen precincts. specifically precincts to show the huge difference between Pashinyan, between Civil Contract and other parties. And that's a shock for most viewers, right? They see 57 percent Pashinyan and others are not even close to what was projected. So for most people, it was—well, I've talked to so many. I mean, they were saying, it's over. He has won again. But as counting continued through the night, Pashinyan's numbers started to go down, down, and eventually they stood at 49%, just short of 50%, right? So that's where we're going. He didn't get—50 percent of the turnout doesn't give him constitutional majority in the parliament. Moreover, he has now fewer seats in the parliament than he had in the previous parliament. That's for sure. But it doesn't mean that he cannot form the government, do many other things. Here is one big issue that he faces. His promise to the people of Armenia was that once he's reelected, he's going to have the peace agreement finally signed by Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan demands that the constitution be changed. And he cannot deliver it through a referendum, and he knows he cannot deliver it right now in the parliament, because he doesn't have the constitutional majority there. So this whole construct starts to, you know, crumble, essentially, because if you cannot have the peace signed, none of the other things are going to be happening that you were promising. So he needs a very, I would say, drastic measures to co-opt, to recruit the opposition party members who are going to make it to the parliament if they take with their mandates. From them, he needs less than 10 people to be from two or three parties. There is even a rumor that Tsarukyan, who you correctly said, is short of 4 percent by 60 votes, right? He had a conversation with some of the Civil Contract party members who were trying to persuade him not to join the coalition in the parliament, and he refused. That's according to their sources. He refused, and once he refused, his number from—it was standing at 4 percent, from 4% went to 3.996% or whatever so I mean it was part of the bargaining that's how it appears it was part of the bargaining political bargaining with him
Hovik:Arthur, what is the consequence? So I've read some estimations that if Prosperous Armenia or Tsarukyan's party is left out of the parliament, that means that Pashinyan will get a three-fifths majority or could get three-fifths majority. The final allocation of the mandates is done after a week or whatever.
Arthur:Yes, all recounting and all that stuff.
Hovik:What is the consequence of Pashinyan having Two thirds majority. I mean, I understand it's not constitutional. I mean, three fifths majority. I mean, it's not constitutional majority. It's not two thirds, but it's still significant, isn't it?
Arthur:Of course it's going to be significant, but as I said, his goal was in the campaign, he was very confidently speaking that he's gonna get, this time he's gonna get 65%. He got 49%. He was confident that he was going to get as much as possible, 65%. Some of the pollsters, even American pollsters, by the way, as far as I understand, they were predicting a landslide and everybody was talking that he's going to get it, but he didn't get even close to that. And I think his only other means to get what he wants is by political pressure on some of the party members. And we know how normally he operates. by blackmail, by putting out some kompromat and whatnot. So that will be his strategy going forward. I think without constitutional majority, this entire exercise is almost not achieving the goal that he had in mind.
Asbed:I think that kompromat issue was also echoed by Edmon Marukyan. He said that just about everyone in these parties, these opposition parties, there's some kind of kompromat on them on the part of Pashinyan and the NSS and that's how he plans to coerce them into
Arthur:I'm sure he can rest assured that there is kompromat on him too, if he speaks about that, right? I mean, look, the game that Pashinyan and his party played was obvious. I mean, it could be read, it was so, I mean, the simplest game I could imagine, politically. So what do you do? You disenfranchise, some say 400,000 voters, some say even 600,000 voters who are not in the country. But you speak about 2.5 million registered voters. But in fact, only—I don't know which number is correct. I mean, the conservative estimate is 400,000 outside, and there are people who are saying, no, it's maybe 600 or more even. So let's go with 400. So you really have already dampened the participation. So when they say the turnout was 59%, in fact it was 70%. Because we should not count from 2.5 million voters, we should count from 2.1 million voters. Because these 400,000 voters, they cannot count, they cannot participate. If they are not in Yerevan, maybe 10,000. And I think we may not know how many people exactly are outside of Armenia, but they do because they know who comes and who goes, that data is collected, and they know how many of the 400,000 outside Armenia are at that point in Armenia and who are not.
Asbed:Yet they said 65% of them are going to vote for them, and yet they didn't allow that. I think I saw an article that quoted that...
Arthur:I think it was another fake news that they were trying to manipulate pretending that 100,000 people are going to arrive somehow from Russia, some oligarchs there or some... Oh yeah, that was total nonsense.
Asbed:But Arthur, there was an article that said that the digital vote count was 537. and supposedly about 300 of them had voted for Civil Contract, which basically told me one thing. They did have the infrastructure standing. They prevented Armenian citizens who were outside the country from voting because they knew what the result was going to be.
Arthur:Yeah, no, this has been going on for a while now, right? I mean, the Constitution grants citizens 18 and over the right to vote, but in fact, they cannot vote. And the state, if the Constitution says that, has to do everything to provide the opportunity for the citizens to exercise their right. In fact, they adopt the law that says that if you are not in Armenia, you cannot vote. Okay, so that's number one. Number two, this is the second part of their strategy. Number two is inundate the field with parties that cannot get more than 2%. Have them even speak against the ruling party. Give them a carte blanche. Let them criticize this. Let them say whatever. Let them collect 1%, 2% even, but that is going to fragment the entire field and take the numbers. I mean, I think in these elections, 200,000 votes have been pulverized. Well, not essentially pulverized, but they're going to go to the winners, whoever makes it to the parliament is going to kind of divvy up that pie that they have created. Re-allocated.
Hovik:I was going to say Pashinyan in his victory speech should have said thanks to Vardan Ghukasyan from DOK and I know some good friends who are Tatoyan supporters, but also Arman Tatoyan because if you go in it and you claim to be like you're going to go all the way but you know that you're not going to get the votes then you're helping Pashinyan by doing
Arthur:it Polling in Armenia is problematic I look at all the sociological polls that we have none of them made a correct prediction about the outcome. And none of them, even the most pro-ruling party ones, gave them more than 35%. But they get 49, right? That's a huge, huge mistake. But no, no. My point is, if you have a new party, And okay, you don't trust the opinion surveys, the polling and whatnot. Conduct your own. And you will see that you are not getting more than 2%. If you are not getting more than 2%, these particular elections, skip it. Skip it. Yes, it's painful. You may have a very good, well-intentioned program for the country. You want to create a political party that will be good for the nation and whatnot. But skip it because this is not an ordinary election. Because the point of this election was not a competition of programs, of who offers to lower the taxes, give incentives or do whatever. It was about, do we continue the path of Pashinyan or we take at least a temporary stop and regroup and say, hey, where are we going? So that's the essence of these elections, not a competition of programs. And Pashinyan was very successful in pushing all of them into debating as if they were debating programs. No, they were debating personalities. All the debates, the ones that I saw, were terrible. They were not even debates. They were ad hominem attacks from the beginning to the end. And that certainly was done again to—there is a significant segment of Armenian voters. It was measured at about 60 percent before the campaign began of the undecided voters. And the struggle was to get as many undecided voters as possible. So what happens then? You kind of shrink the turnout because, as I said, 400,000 or 500,000 people do not participate. They are out of the country. Next, you fragment the vote, because you have this 1% here, 2% there, 0.5%. And a question to Edmon Marukyan would be, you got, let me see, less than 1%. What is it that makes you participate? Are you out of touch with reality? You do not see that your participation is not even close to 4%. Not even close to 1% So why do they keep running?
Hovik:You don't need accurate polls to know that you're not doing so well in my opinion
Arthur:So what the opposition needed to do before the elections was to unite and not to run as a big fragmented field where voters are getting a shopping opportunity You look at some numbers and it's staggering, right? A very new party, Meritocratic Armenia, a very new party, gets more votes in Yerevan than some other parties. I think they got about 60,000 votes in Yerevan.
Hovik:Yeah, we talked about the meritocratic party on our podcast before and very, very suspicious and very questionable. But since you talked about the opposition and their shortcomings, I'm going to challenge you a little bit. You know, everyone. This was one of the. One of the highest turnout elections in modern Armenian history. So there were a lot of worries, and everyone believed that if you can just get enough people to come to vote, then it will be pro-opposition. And it seems that the opposition did that. They got people to the polling booth. The so-called vaporized vote that you're talking about was much less than in 2021.
Arthur:We're talking about, without Prosperous Armenia, without Tsarukyan's party, we're talking about 13% of vote pulverization.
Hovik:13%? But I looked at the numbers, but out of those 13%, only like 4% were opposition-leaning. All the other ones, if those parties didn't participate, they would vote for Pashinyan or they would not come to the elections.
Asbed:Let me understand. You're saying that Gagik Tsarukyan got more votes from the Pashinyan side than the opposition side? No, no.
Hovik:I'm saying that out of the 12 or 13% of the votes that were pulverized, out of all the small parties, not including Tsarukyan, let's assume Tsarukyan passes into the parliament. Out of that 12%, I would say, in reality, only about 4% were pro-opposition. So only 4% of pro-opposition votes were pulverized, in my opinion. Maybe I'm wrong. But what went wrong? Because honestly, when I saw the high participation, I was tracking it real time. I said, And I've seen projections by other opposition parties, internal projections, where they said the magic number is 1.4 million. As long as 1.4 million people show up, it's going to be like a victory for the opposition. And if 1.5 million showed up, it was going to be like a lopsided landslide for the opposition. But 1.5 million people showed up, and we have what we have. Let's assume that there was a lot of falsification. Still, a significant number of people voted for Pashinyan. Why?
Arthur:Yes, it's a good question, and I think everybody should have known the answer to that Historically, in Armenian elections, the incumbent has a huge advantage. Numbers can vary certainly, 25% or maybe a little bit more for the admin resource. So all the government officials, police, military, well, you name it, doctors, teachers, everybody they can put pressure on, vote for them, 25%, right? 25%. 15 more percent, 15 more percent, it can be slightly more or less, 15 more percent are their relatives, friends, their circles, right, because this is a relationship country, and for me it's better to have someone who is who's head of some department or in the mayor's office, a relative of mine, than to vote for somebody who I don't know. Doesn't matter what political agenda he has. I want someone who can help me when I need a problem to be fixed. Very widespread. This is kind of a patron-client type culture, but it exists.
Hovik:Client mentality as well, yeah.
Arthur:Right, so this is the reality. talking about a race where one party has 40% at the outset. So you say run and he already has imagine it's a hundred meter dash and he is at a point of 40 meters. Others are at the start and he's at 40 meters. He has 40% already. All he needed was to get, that's why he was so confident when he was talking in April on the campaign trail, he was talking about 65%. He was hoping he would get the rest by the people who really appreciate his peace and promise of economic prosperity and whatnot.
Hovik:By the way, I'm sorry to interrupt you. We have some non-Armenian people listening. So I want to say, by peace, Pashinyan's peace is complete capitulation. It's Versailles peace. Because I have some friends who are watching who are Americans who don't know, and they might ask, why are we against peace? So it's important to make that distinction. I'm sorry.
Arthur:No, we're not against peace. Okay, I'm sorry. I don't know who's watching, and if you need to make an editorial... comments or interpretation, please do. Everybody in Armenia or the Armenian viewers certainly understand what we mean when we say Pashinyan's peace. It's almost like Orwellian peace. Peace is war, essentially. That's what it is. Because it's just on paper, right? And even that paper hasn't been finalized. It's a pre-signed, it's nothing, right? And he claims that it already has brought peace. But I don't want to go in there. We are diverging from the discussion. You were asking why there are so many people who voted for it. So look now, if there are 1.4 million people participating, right? That's the turnout. Pashinyan has already 650,000 of them, that's 40%. 650,000 and he gets slightly over 700,000. So he only got in a clean competition for his program, for his stance, only a little over 60,000 votes. Right. That's the reality. That's the reality. Can we prove that he uses admin resource? Of course. It's everywhere. It's everywhere. Look, I mean, I've never seen a campaign run and I've seen it in many countries. I don't want to go into the numerous countries where I've seen elections. I've never seen a single country where the, except probably some countries in Africa, maybe Nigeria, I mean, and even there, or in South Sudan, or even there, they would not be doing that. It's his campaign commercial, right? Pashinyan's campaign commercial. It's 30 seconds of hate. What does he say? I'm going to put you behind the bars. I'm going to put you behind the bars. I'm going to put you two behind the bars. I'm always quoting. That's his entire message.
Asbed:I'm going to crush you. I'm going to kill you."Satkatsnel".
Arthur:Right. Now, look, look, let's go back to the point on the Republic. In any Republic, a member of the executive branch of power making that kind of threat would be taken out of the election race. I mean, you are not the prosecutor. You are not the judge. These people have not been... I mean, there is no verdict. There is no... And you're certainly not the executioner. And you are saying you're going to do that. And he gets away with that. He gets away with that. Macron and his... And they're talking about the special services here. Do they not see that? Of course they do. Do they not know that? Of course they do. Why do they condone it then? Because they want Pashinyan. They want Pashinyan. They believe that he's going to deliver what they've dreamed of for many, many years. In fact, since the collapse, get Russia out of that part of the world. That's the agenda. And they think that Pashinyan is going to deliver that. Will he? I mean, that's another $66,000 question.
Hovik:Speaking of the language of hate and repression and intimidation, when Pashinyan was claiming victory while still only 10% of the votes were counted, in that speech you would normally expect the victor to try to consolidate, to try to mend fences, but he actually doubled down on his speech, threatening to jail his opponents, accusing them of bribery without any verdict, and he also actually made references to his speech in Arabkir, where he made those death threats when he said, I'm gonna kill you. He said, I don't want to say what I said in Arabkir, but you guys know, you know, wink, wink. And yesterday we read the news that a criminal case has been opened against Gagik Tsarukyan So the party that is trying to crawl back into the parliament with the 0.004% of the votes missing Very suspicious timing of course And then also I watched the first session of the government since the elections and he again said that anyone found, not found guilty, anyone caught For bribery must I order you that anyone caught for bribery must serve in jail until the 2031 elections. Now, I looked up the jail term for bribery and it's between four and eight years. So theoretically, like someone could get four years and be out in 2029 or 2030, but he's saying I demand a sentence of more than five years. Now, that's in jest, but this society is more divided, I would say, than ever. What is your outlook on Pashinyan's rhetoric and is he going to continue it for another five years? What is your outlook on the next term if he succeeds in maintaining his throne?
Arthur:Well, he has a carte blanche from his Western partners to do anything he wants. Essentially, he even said that his failure to reform the judicial system in Armenia was because he didn't have enough power to do that, and now he has it all of a sudden. I mean, he has the power to do that now. And what does he mean by reforming the judicial system? I mean, that judicial system, right now, he can order and they will do whatever he orders. I mean, that's...
Hovik:I mean, it's fully controlled.
Arthur:With a few exceptions, that has been the case, right? He says he should be arrested and they arrest. I mean, even without presenting the charges, Or even the charges do not merit. I mean, the person can be on bail, but they deny bail for a very mundane kind of violations. For instance, hate speech, or they accuse someone of violating this new law that is almost like the Turkish law of insulting the government. Right, so certainly he has a carte blanche. I think his biggest problem is going to be managing this dual seats, right? I mean, he wants to sit on on a European chair and presents himself to the Europeans and the U.S. as the most pro-European leader in South Caucasus, even more than Georgians, obviously, to say nothing of Azerbaijan. And then he has to deal with the Russian situation, right? And that has been getting more and more difficult. It certainly to a large degree depends on how Russia manages its relations with Europe. Will it happen before December? If it's not going to happen before December, will the relations even escalate? Because there are escalation scenarios I'm not even talking about Ukraine as a proxy. I'm talking direct escalation between Russia and Europe. So if that escalation happens, Russians are going to be adamant that as a partner and a strategic partner, you have to make the choice. You are either with us or with them. They're our enemies, and you cannot play both. I mean, this is not acceptable. That has been their position. We know what happened. And I think Pashinyan is promising his electorate or Armenians that he's going to fix the problem that Armenian vegetable fruits and flowers will be sold on European markets and whatnot. Some people may believe that, but most people who know how it works doubt if it's as a temporary kind of patching it, right? On one instance, maybe some of it will be done, right? They will try to presented as a political will to help Armenia in this dire situation, but it cannot be done on a long-term basis. I mean, they cannot make an exception like that for one country forever, right? Not a member country gets the same status and preferences that others have.
Hovik:So speaking of Russia, Arthur, Look, starting earlier this year, Russia started sending warnings to Pashinyan about his flirtation with the West and the TRIPP project. But it was only a few weeks before the election that Russia started implementing harsher I don't know if there were official sanctions, but the most important ones are stopping the supply of gas at preferential prices. There are more, but so far Putin has not congratulated Pashinyan. And the Russian Foreign Ministry strongly criticized the election, citing the unprecedented pressure on the opposition and interference from the West. Now, this, unlike what the Europeans claim, is not fake news, I can assure you. But how do you explain Russia's passivity, relative passivity, I would say, regarding Armenia? They could have raised their voice in 2023, at least in 2024, 2025. But suddenly, in 2026, they decided to protest harshly. Why? Were they slow? They didn't see this coming?
Arthur:One theory is the last straw that broke the camel's back. I think they could continue to tolerate and think that Pashinyan can be talking whatever he wants, We have all the leverages here. We control the game. Economic dependence on Russia is both sensitive and there are so many vulnerabilities. Any rational politician would not go on a suicidal kind of mission of cutting the relations and whatnot. Let's not forget what happened in Armenia when Zelenskyy was in Yerevan and what kind of a statement he made in Yerevan. Of course, I'm far from suggesting that Putin would make a huge emotional decision-making that would trigger such strong emotions in him that he would make that kind of decision. No. But the Russian public watching this the country at war and you have our enemy, essentially. threaten on May 9 parade, to send his drones to participate to Moscow, downtown Moscow. So that was their reaction, not to what Pashinyan, but they needed to do something to assure their own public, and they're going to elections this fall too, right? So to show that we can play a strong hand. And this is part of the problem with the Russian foreign policy, because their instruments are not very sophisticated and nuanced. They lack soft power almost entirely. Their instruments are very blunt, and they know that if they use those instruments, they're gonna probably do a lot of damage. They almost hesitate to use it until the very last minute. They hesitated to use it even with Ukraine. And even now, if you watch Putin speak about this , he says that we did We didn't really use the fully loaded ammunition on these Oreshniks when we hit Ukraine. So it's kind of a huge dilemma for them. On one hand, they want to control, but their instruments of control are very blunt, right? I can make you feel the pain and it will be a huge pain. I don't even know how you're going to recover from that pain, but that's my instrument. Don't test me. Don't make me use it. I don't want to use it, but I can use it. And then it gets to a point where they have no other options than to use it. Will they get to that on December 6th, right? Because December 6th of this year is when they're going to make a decision whether Armenia should stay or should not stay. And what they're telling Pashinyan is, okay, you want to go to Europe, Armenian people want to go to Europe, fine, go to Europe, but not at our expense. We should not be bankrolling your ticket to the the European Union. All right, go and do that. Is it fair? In some ways it is fair, yes, because they're not threatening just him. They're saying, okay, give us the answer. Where do you want to be? And we'll take any answer. But if you decide that you go to European Union, not at our expense. Yes, solve your problems with them. We are sure that you're going to be worse off if you do that. But if that's not persuasive for you, We're not putting any pressure on you. We're just saying that we'll be selling gas to you at the price that we are selling on the international markets. That's it.
Asbed:So that means we're seeing the so-called strategic relationship between Armenia and Russia become more of a transactional relationship. As long as there's something in it for Russia, Russia is going to be okay with whatever Armenia does. My thoughts were that there were some strategic interests on the part of Russia in Armenia. For example, this middle corridor, the East-West corridor was not something that was fully in their interest and they had some reason to be in. Are you removing those things?
Arthur:As far as I understand, what they think in Moscow these days about this dilemma is that we cannot kind of go on and occupy Armenia or bring our preferred leader to Armenia and say that without bayonets, we'll make sure that he's your new ruler. That option does not exist, right? But what we can do is we can have them choose the path of suffering. Let them go on that path. Again, I mean, I'm not evaluating, please do not. I'm just trying to reproduce their thinking about the dilemma. Okay, let them go on that path, just as Georgians did, and at some point understood that they're getting worse off on their path to Europe on the terms that Europe has presented for them. Armenians will have the same, but they have to come to that understanding themselves. We cannot do it for them. When they come, maybe they'll come back to us. And we hope they'll come back to us. We'll keep the door ajar for them. But we cannot impose on them our will or kind of—the best we can do is to protect our interests, to ask them that the field will be leveled, right, for political competition. They're saying, oh, there are so many Pro-Russian people, Armenian citizens who are in Russia, they're going to come vote and they're all pro-Russian. Okay, that's the reality. What do you suggest then? And we don't know if they're going to vote pro-Russia or they're going to vote the way they think. You know, this is a very difficult political choice for any country, small country like Armenia. You have a huge diaspora Some say about over a million people in Russia or Russia alone, right? So do these people remain your citizens? Can they vote? Can they participate in your political process or not? Right now they cannot. And that also makes Russia kind of, you deprive us of another kind of soft power tool okay yes we are not telling these people to come live and work in Russia and make money and become rich in Russia they come and do that here on their own right and they keep sending a lot of money back to Armenia so are you saying that they are less Armenian citizens than the ones who live permanently in Armenia is that what you're saying Then, of course, you are limiting their way of influencing things. Would it be fair to say that, you know, our ruling party, I mean, they were trying to address this issue and they were saying, we're not against diaspora Armenians to come to Armenia and vote. Look what they're saying. Armenian citizens in diaspora to come and vote. We're against the ones who are coming because the organized crime and some hybrid war mongers are sending them to vote for one party or the other. Okay, how do you know that?
Asbed:Those definitions are entirely up to them.
Hovik:You know what? They actually did statistics. Visitors from Russia during the month of the elections This year compared to last year, it was less this year. So it was all fake news and all the Western media ran with it. Todd, my good friend, if you're watching, you read some of those articles that you asked me about it. It was all fake news that Russians are sending millions of people in Armenia to vote Pashinyan out. In reality, it was completely the opposite.
Arthur:I understand why they did that, because they wanted to keep this frame. Right. This bear is after this tiny Armenia, and it's really about tiny Armenia that really wants to go to the West, and Russia is putting so much pressure. And they talk about hybrid war, and I'm sure that there are all sorts of news-fabricated, low-quality stuff that they're putting out there in Russia when it comes to Armenian elections. But so do everybody else. the visit of the Secretary of State to Armenia for 40 minutes to pre-sign another pre-signed document and to say that they want Pashinyan to win is not pressure on the system? Of course it is. Of course it is. And that's following J.D. Vance and then Trump sending his posts saying that he wants Pashinyan to win.
Asbed:So do you think that Putin is going to eventually congratulate Pashinyan, meaning that basically Russia is going to find a new modus vivendi with the current situation that Armenia is getting into? Of course, I don't know that Trump has congratulated Pashinyan. Only Marco Rubio, so far, has congratulated him.
Arthur:Right. I think judging by the reactions from the Russian Foreign Ministry, they will use the process of post-electoral recounting and legal issues and whatnot as a pretext to say that only when the whole situation is finalized, we can congratulate the winning party. But, you know, Putin always plays with kid gloves, right? It would not hurt him to congratulate Pashinyan. He even went on and publicly said that if Armenian people select this, whatever Armenian people think is good for them is good for us. So if, in other words, if electing Pashinyan is good for the Armenian people, so be it. I mean, we'll go with whatever choice you're making.
Asbed:So that was what he said, I think, a week ago in St. Petersburg.
Arthur:Yes, I mean, he has said something like that several times. And I think they also understand that, especially Western media, And Western media certainly is doing that not because they do not know much about the situation. I think it's all orchestrated somehow when all of them, in a chorus, they are saying the same thing over and over. Russia has lost in Armenia. As if Russia had its candidates and they lost. First of all, they haven't lost. They're in the parliament. Even if you consider that, I mean, they got 23% from the turnout, that's not a loss. I mean, that's significant. Why do you say that they lost? Second, I think that the whole frame is erroneous. Because Pashinyan is not going to play... This is known as alternatives game, right? He tells Europeans that the threat is from Russia. He wants to get away from Russia one day. That's what Armenian people want. I mean, do we want that? By the way, the most pro-European parties participating in these elections, because I don't think that Civil Contract is really pro-European or pro-Western. That's a myth. But the real ones who openly speak, we want European Union, and they come with the European Union flags and whatnot. How many votes did they get? Less than 1%? Will he really run a referendum to see where people stand on this? Of course, it depends how you frame the question, too. If you say, do you want to be in European Union? Yeah, well, everybody will say, yes, why not? But the question is, does European Union want you? Are you ready to be a member of the European Union? And what's going to happen in that long wait to get in?
Hovik:Or if they could ask do you want to join NATO and go to war with Russia because the meritocratic party leader exactly said that Armenia should join NATO. So if a question is phrased like that, do you want to join an alliance that is an enemy of Russia? I think that they will get much less votes.
Arthur:No, there are Armenians, I think, here. I think we need to be realistic and recognize that there are Armenians who think, yes, we should be with NATO, we should be with Ukraine. And you can hear these people speak on public television. They do exist. It's not an exaggeration of somebody's imagination.
Hovik:No, but it's exactly the percentage of votes that the meritocratic party got, which is 2%, I think. I don't think it's more than that, but maybe I'm wrong.
Arthur:Yes, that's what I'm saying. They collectively got less than spoiled ballots. 17,000 of ballots were recognized Not eligible.
Hovik:Invalid,
Arthur:yeah Invalid, whatever Yes, 17,000 17,000, that's almost 1.5% 1.1, 1.2% And compared to 2021, that's 13,000 more than 2021 Supposedly in an electoral system that is improving It
Hovik:would be certainly interesting to understand that 17,000, too
Arthur:Were they really, because some people would fold the ballot and that was not allowed. Some people would mark it somehow. So yes, I understand that's technical invalidation. But apart from technical invalidation, were there other reasons these were recognized invalid? This is why I think the opposition should be part of the recount. Or were they from the ruling party?
Asbed:Exactly.
Arthur:But I'm saying there are more votes, more votes, more invalid votes than Babajanyan and Shirinyan, these kind of radical anti-Russian, pro-Western kind of candidates who spoke in debates. This is also indicative of something. So back to this issue between Russia. As I said, I mean, it will depend on where the Russia-Ukraine war is going to be in December. Is it going to escalate or deescalate with the Europeans? Are they going to find some kind of modus vivendi on Ukraine and resume at least some kind of diplomatic and trade and other activities. If not, then certainly the pressure is going to be on Pashinyan to come with an answer. He's saying we do not need to run a referendum now. But did you really get A mandate, he likes the word, a mandate from the people, as if 500,000 who could not vote for you with the blue Armenian passports are not part of your people, or half of the population who voted or voters who came and voted against you are not part of the people. But he says, I have the mandate from the people. But a question, does that mandate from the people include getting out of the Eurasian Economic Union and joining the European Union. I don't see that issue even being put as part of the program. It's not there. So will he really decide to run a referendum?
Hovik:And if he does,
Arthur:and I think he would not, because if he does, he then will not have an opportunity to continue this alternatives game. where he goes to Russia and says, oh, I'm doing this with Europeans because it helps me serve your interests better because I'm avoiding sanctions. And if I'm avoiding sanctions, it means that I can procure all sorts of stuff that then is shipped to Russia.
Asbed:Arthur, one final closing question here. Given that the Constitutional Court is now completely made up of handpicked Pashinyan supporters, I'm not sure how much can be expected from a court process challenging and stuff like that. Of course, due process requires all of that. But what should be the opposition's next steps? Should they accept their mandates? Should they not accept their mandates? Should they go to street action? Which way should they go? Why? And tell us a little of your thoughts on this.
Arthur:The party that is ready for street action is not waiting for anything. They have enough evidence that this was not fair, not free, all sorts of stuff was violated even before the voting day. They take people to the street. There is enough protest, enough mobilization. I don't see it happening now. The ruling party doesn't see it either, and therefore they are trying to dampen it even further, as I said, to drag time and it's summer and people will be out of Armenia on their vacations and that's it. That's their strategy. And I think obviously a number of legal experts in these political parties and some even leaders are lawyers by profession. There is this policy because lawyers want to believe that if justice is on their side, they should go all the way to get the recourse and get the justice. But that's not what happens in politics. Politics runs on very different metrics. It doesn't work that way. So, and as I said, in 2021, There were sessions of the Constitutional Court, there were hearings, and then the verdict will be repeated. The same verdict will be repeated in 2026 when it gets to the doorsteps of the Constitutional Court. This is it. And I don't think Pashinyan will have any problems doing that, because he has the full backing of the West. Whatever he does, will be justified because it's done to the pro-Russians, right? It's the pro-Russians who want to do this. That therefore is justified. And this is a very, I mean, from the point of view of justice, it's a very false argument. Because if you ask me, I mean, it doesn't matter for me. I mean, they are a failed government. They failed on their promises from 2021, and you started by mentioning some of those. They have failed on so many accounts to their own voters in 2021. So that alone is enough to say that a person can be against that government. Again, not because he or she is pro-Russian, but because they have failed. They have failed. And that issue is being obfuscated by this frame of pro-Russians versus pro-Westerners.
Asbed:Yeah, it drives me nuts.
Arthur:That means that they either do not understand what's going on in Armenia or they do it deliberately to obfuscate the issue.
Asbed:Yeah, the fact that the program that they ran on in 2021 has been completely not accomplished. The opposite has been accomplished. It's a complete failure of that platform and nobody wants to hold them accountable. Okay, thank you very much for joining us, Arthur. We appreciate your time. And we'll talk soon.
Arthur:Cheers. Bye-bye.
Hovik:Thank you, Arthur.
Arthur:Have a good day in California. Yes, you are. Thank you. It's nice to hear. Bye-bye. Bye.
Asbed:Okay. Well, that was our show. Today is June 9, 2026, a couple of days after Election Day. We've been talking with Arthur G. Martirosyan, who is a senior consultant with CM Partners. In 1994, he graduated from Yale. He joined Conflict Management Group and Harvard Negotiations Project and has since worked on conflicts in the former Soviet Union, the Middle East. But Hovik has some alternative ways to deal with this. What's going on with our technology world, Hovik?
Hovik:Well, just like many of the opposition members are in physical jails in Armenia, I think we are also in jail, but we're different jails. Facebook jail, YouTube jail. Having 13 14,000 followers our episodes get very little views because our content for whatever reason is not recommended but you know we get a lot of likes so we're doing something about that and one of the things is we now have an app we have joined one of those big clubs of podcasts that have an app and it's a very lightweight app you can test it out by going to app.groong.org and all it does is it lists our podcast episodes and it notifies you when there is a new episode so rather than relying on youtube to get your notification or your recommendation you get it directly from us we shortcut the youtube process it's still uh it's nice viewer you can view it on your cell phone or your browser Now it's a web app so on Android phones if you open that URL app.groong.org it will actually ask you to install it and it will appear as a normal app I think on iPhones you have to do some weird shortcut things we will include information on how to install it on iPhone as well but this is just a beta test so it's a very early beta we ask you to please just test it out let us know how you like the
Asbed:interface because just have fun with it for now And we're eventually going to add more functionality in there. But for now, let's just get it out there so that people get notified. It's really amazing how little notification these platforms are sending about our new episodes, about the stuff that we put out. Because, you know, we've done a little bit of SEO management and it still does not help. I think that our content is not favored by the powers that be behind the scenes. So this is another channel. But let me also mention, Hovik, this is not going to come for free this stuff is going to cost more money we are using money from the funds that we have received from our supporters so don't forget you can support us go to podcasts.groong.org slash donate and help us out become a supporter and give us on a regular basis whether you like it at the Lahmajoun Luminary level or you like it at some other level check us out slash donate
Hovik:Thank you, everyone. And just to add, going back to the app, we also have an Android native apps, Android and iPhone coming. But again, please help us test this out because then that will help have the native apps be released sooner.
Asbed:What was the URL for that?
Hovik:app.groong.org, app.groong.org. Thank you in advance. Make sure to get it. It's very quick. Just type it in your browser. We will also include a link in the show notes and description.
Asbed:I'm Asbed Bedrossian. We'll talk to you soon.
Hovik:I'm Hovik Manucharyan. Have a nice day.
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