Warning: This is a rush transcript generated automatically and may contain errors.
Asbed: Hello, everyone. It’s May 22nd. We’re a couple of weeks away from the parliamentary elections in Armenia on June 7, 2026. There are 17 parties and two alliances registered to run in this election.
And in this Conversations on Groong episode, we thought we’d run through them for our listeners, sort of like a primer to get a look at the lay of the land. In the following episode, we’re going to do a little bit more of a deep dive with Edgar Elbakyan in some of the participants and some of the issues related in this election. So just remember that this is mostly a run through of all 19 participants. There’s no real deep diving mentioning who they are, what they stand for, and that’s that.
Hovik: Yeah, although we will provide some analytics and some analysis. Whatever we don’t get to, we’ll put in the show notes. So definitely go to the show notes. We will have a link to all the programs of the parties that we could find and all the electoral material in case you’re interested to know more.
Elections normally work in democratic societies. And sometimes we forget the true scale of the backsliding that we have witnessed in front of our own eyes for this current regime. So we have to preface this by saying that the opposition parties in Armenia face serious challenges in an uneven playing field that is being set up for them and that has been set up for them. This includes massive jailing of opposition leaders and members.
It includes high level It includes EU rapid response teams to help the regime in whatever the regime wants to do, especially propaganda and throttling the opposition messages. And it includes an army of fact checkers that continuously Right, but no amount of fact-checking, jailing and foreign endorsements can maintain a regime in power that is, in essence,
Asbed: a foreign And despite all this, everyone agrees that it all depends on turnout. More voters make elections more So whether you’re an Armenian citizen, a voter, and you have family members, you have family members, you have family members, you have family members, you have family members. Finally, in Armenia, it is important to get all of your friends, all of your family who have the right to vote, get them to go to the polls on June 7 and vote their preference. That’s the most important thing.
And, you know, as we discuss, each party will also present the most recent MPG poll. I think that came out today or was it yesterday, Hovik?
Hovik: Just today, and while we were preparing this episode, another poll dropped. We are working with the data that we have at our hands, and in a future episode, perhaps on our Week in Review episode, we will go into more details and compare and contrast both polls.
Asbed: So we can say that we got the MPG poll. We kind of looked at that one, and then the IRI poll came out. We really haven’t looked at that one yet. They’re just numbers, and they seem different, let’s just say.
Hovik: Okay, so before we go to the parties, let’s cover the rules of the game, essentially, the electoral code a little bit. In the Armenian Parliament, there is a minimum requirement of 101 seats, and all of them are elected through a proportional system. Parties and alliances provide a closed list of candidates to the CEC. I guess closed means that you can’t change them. and voters cast their ballots for a specific party or bloc rather than individual candidates.
Asbed: Right. Now, political forces must earn a minimum vote percentage to enter government and for single Parties Like for example, the Civil Contract is a single party, so they just have to earn 4% to get into Parliament. Alliances of two parties are going to need to earn 8%, alliances of three parties are needing to earn 9%, and alliances of four parties or more have to earn 10% to get into Parliament.
Hovik: Can I just add that these thresholds were raised recently during Pashinyan’s regime. Previously, they were much lower. Do you know why, by the way? Well, it’s obvious, right?
An alliance would have a better chance against Pashinyan, so they want to de-incentivize people joining alliances.
Asbed: Right. So there’s no minimum voter turnout required for the election to be considered valid. The results stand regardless of the number of participants. So it could be a minority of the people who show up at the polls, but the results are going to be valid regardless.
If a party or alliance passes its respective threshold, seats are distributed. distributed according to their share of the total vote. Up to four seats are reserved for the country’s largest national minorities, that’s the Yezidis and the Russians, the Assyrians and the Kurds, to ensure that they are properly represented in parliament. And each party must include at least one third women, that’s 30% women, Additionally, a maximum of 30% of the candidates of a list can be independent candidates. That means they don’t actually belong to one of the parties in an alliance, or if it’s just the party, then to the party.
And each list must contain at least a minimum of 80 candidates.
Hovik: If a single party or alliance receives more than 50% of the seats, they can form a government all on their own. If a party wins a majority of votes but it fails to secure the 52% of the mandates, previously it was 54%, They are awarded additional seats to reach the 52% threshold. So it is always guaranteed that the leading party will have 52% in Parliament. This is called stable majority.
Many people curse it, but it is what it is, so it’s important to understand how this works. And if no single entity or party wins a majority, the political forces have six days after the preliminary results to negotiate and form coalitions in order to reach a majority. So one of the scenarios that could be that all the opposition parties, if they join together and have more than 50%, then they will be able to form a government. Besides that, they also have to agree on a prime minister, of course.
So forming a government and agreeing on a prime minister. And that’s the big trick of a coalition, it seems, these days.
Yes. if a coalition cannot be formed within a six-day window a second round of voting happens and this is within 28 days and this is purely between the first and second place parties and it’s a essentially winner gets all so whoever wins this second round they will automatically get the additional mandates added to them The mandates from the other parties won’t be removed, so the parliament will have more than 101 seats, but they will get enough mandates in order to reach 52% of that stable majority that we’re talking about.
Asbed: Yeah, and I don’t want to run through a lot of the campaign and finance regulations because they’re fairly complex. I’ll just say that there are some rigid funding rules. Participants must manage campaign finances through a mandatory transparency. and audited pre-election fund. There are registration deposits, which in some cases they can get back.
There are spending limits. And we put all these things in the show notes, I promise. And there are some prohibitions on foreign funding or interference, which is, of course, strictly prohibited. And the Constitutional Court has the authority to suspend the parties from any kind of improper participation in the elections.
Hovik: Of course, the foreign funding clause does not apply to rapid response teams. So I think it’s important to clarify that.
Asbed: Right. Right. I mean, there’s a lot of Orwellian implementation here. So let’s just be aware of that.
I’m going to go to the first one so that we can start running through these parties. The first one. So we’ll go by order of the ballots.
Hovik: Yeah. So for those following along, if you’re watching the video or if you’re just listening to audio, know that the YouTube version or the video version of this will have slides. So all this information will be in much more detail. And as always, you can go to the show notes where all the details will also be present.
Asbed: Right, right. So the first one, we’ll go from ballot one to ballot 19, okay. That’s going to be the reformist party. And their reformists and their top three candidates, Vagharshak Harutyunyan, and Vahan Babayan and Ani Nerganyan.
Now, most people will not know some of these names, but Vagharshak Harutyunyan should be known to you. The man has been around for at least 50 years, all of independence. He was Minister of Defense as well as recently as 2020, I believe, right?
Hovik: Yes.
Asbed: Anyway, from 1999 to 2000, he was the Minister of Defense after October 27 in 1999 and the appointment of Aram Sarkisyan, Aram Zaveni Sargsyan, Kocharyan sacked him, Vagharshak Harutyunyan, along with Aram Sarkisyan. for scheming against him. Besides being dismissed, Kocharyan also stripped Harutyunyan of his rank of lieutenant general, but he seems kind of a survivor of all of these, let’s say, upheavals in politics, and he survived all the way until serving under Pashinyan as well. But at this point, he’s viewed as kind of a marginal player. He draws a small amount of protest votes away from the opposition.
And I would say that most people on both sides don’t really trust these folks a whole lot.
Hovik: Yeah, and I think, you know, the undertone for me, I have to say this every time, is whether someone has collaborated with Nikol Pashinyan after 2020 and Definitely Vagharshak Harutyunyan has, and his signature is on the paper, allegedly, reportedly, that essentially gave away parts of the Goris-Kapan highway to Azerbaijan and withdrew Armenian forces all the way back, resulting in the situation today where South Armenia is blockaded. And if you want to go from Goris to Kapan, tough luck. You have to have a much longer route.
Okay, so number two, and these are all, I guess, assigned by lottery or some random order, but it’s this new party that was formed. It’s a protest party called Against All . It’s essentially comprised mostly of IT workers, former NGO workers or current NGO workers. generally pro-European and pro-Western tendencies, I would say. Now, this party is interesting because I think it’s essentially hacking, trying to hack the elections.
So if someone is pissed off at all the parties, They can say, I’m against all, but they might not know that they’re actually voting for a real party called I’m against all. And the goal of this party is essentially to force a 100-day interim government to change the election code, then have new elections. But at the current polling rate of 1.9%, it’s clear that they will not be able to have such a big mandate. So essentially they are stealing votes from someone.
I think in this case, this party may be stealing a lot of votes from Pashinyan, but Pashinyan doesn’t care because he has a lot to give away. But they might also be stealing some from ordinary undecided citizens, which is very interesting. Many of these people, I’m not going to go through all of them, but many people in these parties come from the Qaghaqatsu Voroshum Party, and many of these people were supporters of the Pashinyan regime change, or POU, in 2018. They eventually grew disillusioned, but not enough to decide what the real answer is, I would say.
Asbed: I read an article yesterday that most of their submitted list members dropped out. I’m really sorry that I didn’t keep that in mind for this recording, but we’ll put that into show notes. But so I don’t know what the effect of those dropouts is going to be. Does that mean the party is going to be disqualified?
I have no idea.
Hovik: I think as long as I mean, if they have I’m pretty sure that if they earn any mandates, it would be like three or four. So all they need is three or four people. But Nina Karapetyants is going to be their prime minister candidate, I believe. Although the party was started by Spartak Kyureghyan.
Asbed: Well, I’m going to be sorry not to see them earn positions in the Parliament because I would have liked to see Spider-Man become a member of the Armenian Parliament
Hovik: They’re doing stupid campaigning They’re doing crazy skits Honestly, you could say it’s not serious And I’m not sure what the purpose is If you know
Asbed: that We’d be replacing some clowns with some superheroes Who else? What’s number three?
Hovik: Number three is Strong Armenia, Samvel Karapetyan’s party. The top three on their list are Narek Karapetyan, Samvel Karapetyan’s nephew, Aram Vardevanyan, who used to be from the Hayastan Dashink in the 2021 elections, and Gohar Meloyan, another well-respected lawyer on my behalf. There are more, I mean, it’s being the a party with the momentum like Samvel Karapetyan he has a lot of smart people stacked up in this list and they are currently, according to MPG, they’re pulling at about 15%. But as I said, the IRI polls show different results.
We will go into details why these polls may have have a skew. So Samvel Karapetyan’s party is not an ideological party like others, right? It was started basically, he’s the biggest benefactor alive. Some would say even when you compare him to Kerkorian, he has done more monetarily for Armenia than Kerkorian has.
And I believe he’s a very patriotic Armenian, so I believe that this is his attempt to rectify the mess that Pashinyan has put us in. So it’s essentially building up state capacity, sovereignty first, strong economic development is one of their planks. and more traditional security outlook. What else can be said? I mean, we should say that Samvel Karapetyan is under house arrest, so he cannot campaign.
So essentially the campaign is, the party is campaigning with both their hands tied behind the back.
Asbed: And now there are allegations that Narek, who is leading the party right now in all of its campaigns, has been accused of having foreign citizenship in Russia, which he has denied and all these things. There are daily arrests, apparently.
Hovik: Hybrid warfare. That’s the name of the game. They got a lot of money.
Asbed: The Civil Contract got a lot of money from Europe to harass these people Even
Hovik: Russia officially denied saying that this person is not a citizen of ours, but the Armenian authorities still launched a criminal investigation And I think that maybe they will arrest him as well. We should also mention the arrest of Kandaz. There’s a security evangelist for the party, Artur Avanesyan. We talked about him.
Many, many party members and party leaders from Strong Armenia are under arrest or being harassed every day.
Asbed: Yeah. So let’s move to number four. That’s the meritocratic party, which is Shnorhapatakan Kusaktsutyun. This Gusak Sutyun, this party is being led by Gurgen Simonyan, who has been doing some extensive campaigning.
My aunt in Canada is enraptured by all his Facebook Lives promising. He’s basically promising and supporting a technocratic leadership based on the rejection of all the formers. That includes the Pashinyan people. So he promises not to make any kind of an alliance with these things.
He’s very explicitly anti-Russian. He’s pro-EU and pro-West sentiments. And while they’re small, the latest polls seem to show that he’s got a couple of percents in the polls.
Hovik: Yeah. In fact, the IRI poll actually gives him more percentage. And I think it’s important to watch I had no idea about him about a year ago and then I came to the United States met with a friend and he says yeah I mean Gurgen Simonyan is the best thing since sliced bread and it seems like he’s sort of a dark horse in terms of he seems to be
Asbed: doing well in the diaspora
Hovik: Yeah, and I don’t know where the funding is, but as you said, his party is probably the most anti-Russian party in Armenia that has momentum right now, possibly next to National Democratic Union or as they used to be called before. The next one, number five on the list, the number five ballot is new power. And that party essentially was started by Hayk Marutyan, former mayor of Yerevan You might know him from the 2018 coup when he ran as mayor of Yerevan and he started painting the opposition as black and white, very strong divisive lines that have persisted until today when there is no tolerance.
They were circling caskets of opposition members mocking and doing fake mock funerals. And what’s also important with taking into account Hovik’s rule of the collaboration with Nikol, he stayed on with Civil Contract after 2020 until December 2021. And he implemented, maybe begrudgingly, but still faithfully implemented their policies in Yerevan until he was sacked by the party. He is also one of the richest candidates.
We have a few rich candidates, of course, Robert Kocharyan, Gagik Tsarukyan, Samvel Karapetyan, but he is also not a small fish.
Asbed: And let’s also mention Nikol Pashinyan.
Hovik: With a lot of Bitcoin, you know, because he’s not declaring it. So it’s clear that this party is running based solely on his name alone and none of the other names impressed me on that list and they currently have 2.7% in the MPG poll Wings of Unity, Hovik Wings of Unity is led by Arman Tatoyan you might know him as a charismatic former human rights ombudsman He has teamed up with Davit Ananyan, former Director of Customs Committee, essentially, or State Revenue Committee, and they have a few other interesting people in their mix. And they’re ballot number six. They’re currently polling, according to MPG, at 5.8%.
And I think that Arman Tatoyan’s Program is ideologically aligned to traditional and nationalist values. For instance, one of the members of that list is Shahen Harutyunyan from the Shant Dashink. He is the son of Shant Harutsunyan, and the Dashing is named after his father. And Shant is also one of the most anti-Russian and most nationalist political persona in Armenia.
What’s also interesting, I will mention that both Davit Ananyan… Davit Ananyan, I think, served under Nikol Pashinyan until 2020, sometime in the summer. Arman Tatoyan served until 2021, if I’m not mistaken. Although I have to say he has always tried to do his job and maybe he thought by staying on, he would be able to take care of the rights of Artsakhtsis, the POWs and so forth.
But when the fish is rotting from the head, no amount of tail can help it.
Asbed: Number seven on the ballot is going to be Bargavach Hayastan. This is Prosperous Armenia Party led by Gagik Tsarukyan, one of the richest men in Armenia. And number two on the party is Andranik Tevanyan, who, of course, just a couple of days ago, I believe, got charged with treason. Yeah, was it today?
I read the news and…
Hovik: So two days ago, two days ago, Pashinyan announced in Parliament that you are a traitor, you’re a state traitor, and the next day the National Security Service arrests him, charging him for, he says it’s fabricated, and I have all the reason to believe that, but this is what is the fair for opposition candidates.
Asbed: Another case where Pashinyan just announces something and then the police show up a few hours later. The efficiency level is amazing, folks. You know, whether it’s a Facebook Live from Pashinyan or whether it’s from the podium in the parliament, it’s like an Done deal. The police will show up.
So this party is currently polling at approximately 8.7%. And so I shouldn’t say party. It’s actually an alliance.
Hovik: The main participants in the alliance are… Actually, it’s not an alliance. They’re running as a party, but they have other supporting parties that have agreed to have independent candidates on the list.
Asbed: But so how much do they have to earn in order to get into the parliament? Four percent? For all of them together, okay. So Mother Armenia, this is Andranik Tevanyan’s party that is part of the supporting cast, I’ll just say.
And then there’s the Democratic Alternative Party by Suren Surenyans. I don’t know the party a whole lot, but Surenyans is a constant presence in opposition newspapers, and you can read his analysis, for example, on 168.AM. Now, the party has a very strong reputation in the region. Gagik Tsarukyan is very strong, for example, is in Kotayk and various regions.
He’s put up the biggest Jesus statue, I think, in the country. And that has made waves around the world. You can see some of the articles, even like in international media.
Hovik: And also another thing about this party is that it has also an interesting cast of independent MP candidates. I want to mention Ara Ayvazyan. Now he, I think, has respect in the foreign policy circles because he tried also, like Arman Tatoyan, to do the right thing. After the 2020 war, he was appointed as foreign minister.
But he lasted a year, essentially, and left because of strong, I guess, fundamental disagreements with Pashinyan. But it should be mentioned, after 2020, he decided to go and work for Pashinyan.
Asbed: There are some other names that I actually recognize from this, for example, Martun Grigoryan and Elinar Vardanyan. These people have been in the politics, in the political scene in Yerevan. So these are not unknown people, and there’s a good amount of thinking power in this party. Who’s next?
Oh, you want to talk? Oh, I’ll talk about Bever. The full name is Azgayin Zhoghovrdavarakan Bever, Hamahaykakan Kusaktsutyun, National Democratic Pan-Armenian Party. They are on ballot number eight.
I’ll just read a couple of the names. And then, of course, I consider them kind of a radical pro-Western fringe group, but they are also rapidly anti-Russian. Their primary platform is an immediate total break from Russian security and economic influence. And they were involved in the 2016 seizure of a police station, the Sasna Tsrer event, if you recall.
And it’s a rebranding of that movement to this Bever movement at this point in time. Ara Papian is their foreign policy evangelist, probably would become, I mean this is my guess, but probably would become the foreign minister if these people get anywhere. And he says that Armenia should make claims to Western Armenia and the Treaty of Sevres, etc, etc.
Hovik: Yeah, and also it’s notable that they are using a lot of money to lobby in the United States.
Asbed: They seem to be very well funded by NGOs.
Hovik: Yeah, and hiring like lobbyists, prominent lobbyists who have done work for Turkey in the past, I believe Livingston Group, but maybe currently they’re not, but they’re very active in the lobbying in the United States.
Asbed: Let’s move on. Number nine.
Hovik: Number 9 is a party called Kochari. The full name is Kochari Azgayin Veratsnund yev Azgi Zartonk, Kusaktsutyun National Revival Kochari and Awakening of Nation Party. Honestly, I have no idea who this person is. He has some weird pictures with wads of cash and gold chains on his Facebook.
Asbed: I always think that this is the dance party. They’re polling at 0.4%. How much time do we need to dedicate here?
Hovik: Yeah, we should mention that also Bever is polling at 0.2%, so very minimal. But I think this is also like another attempt to hack the elections using the Kocharyan prefix. Maybe someone will think it’s Kocharyan and vote for Kochari. But okay, let’s go on.
Okay, number 10.
Number 10 is our friend Levon Zurabyan from the Armenian National Congress Party. and they are polling horribly at 0.3% it seems like in the last 10 years they are participating in elections but not going anywhere even though I agree with some of the things that he’s saying his forces his party has taken a very pro-BRICS position they’re essentially advocating that in order for TRIPP to work it should be BRICS plus TRIPP or TRIPP plus BRICS in which case and they’re very strong advocates for increased relations with Iran which I like I mean I think very pragmatic thinking but unfortunately ANC is it seems it’s running on fumes to be
Asbed: So ANC is, of course, Hay Azgayin Kongres, which was the party of Levon Ter-Petrosyan back in the 90s. And like you said, it’s not polling a whole lot and the whole idea of trip and I’m going to start calling it the yellow bricks road at this point in time. Number 11 is the Republic Party, not the Republican Party that is led by Serge Sarksyan and is not running, but the Republic Party is Aram Zaveni Sargsyan’s party and they are polling something over 1%. I don’t remember the exact number. 1.3%? 1.3%.
Aram Zaveni Sargsyan is firmly pro-Western and highly critical of Russia. They are considered ideologically aligned with many of the Civil Contracts goals regarding European integration and often seen as a reliable ally that can capture Western leaning votes without challenging any of Pashinyan’s core governance issues. May I also say I almost consider them basically Like the kind of party that is an opposition party that is pro-Pashinyan and garnering votes away from… Pocket opposition.
Yeah, a pocket opposition. Sorry to interrupt you. Let’s go on.
Hovik: No. Number 12 is the Christian Democrat Party. I’m just going to say the short names. Their ballot number 12.
This is basically the party of Levon Shirinyan.
Most of these parties are single-person parties, but they have a very consistent policy of running and they always get like 0.2% or 0.3% and they’re currently polling at 0.2% it is essentially another ideologically aligned party with Pashinyan same as a republic party so yeah you can read more about them in the show notes so number 13 is the alliance party it was formed by Tigran Urikhanyan who is also one of these meanderers in politics that has participated in one election or so forth he’s currently in Russia and the Armenian government is going after him and he’s of course claiming that it’s unjust yeah but he’s listed as the number one on the party ballot and crossed out on the CEC website Meaning he’s disqualified from running because I guess he’s in Russia or he’s under criminal, you know, suspicion or something.
Asbed: Okay. Number 14 is Democratic Consolidation. I don’t know a whole lot about these people. Suren Petrosyan I believe was one of the people that I read about when The Tavush movement was happening and then suddenly there was some kind of fallout and he disappeared from view.
Well, he is here. He’s running his Hamakhmbum. They are polling at 0.1%. So I’m not sure how relevant they’re going to be in this election.
And I don’t know. Hovik, do you have any thoughts about them?
Hovik: No, I think just the fact that it was a mysterious disappearance on June 12 when the opposition was attacked and then he said that the security services took him to a house and they kept him and they showed him very scary stuff and essentially there’s a sense that he betrayed Bagrat Srbazan and we now know that a lot of those allegations by the security services were false.
Asbed: Yeah, yeah. And I remember suddenly that you and I actually talked about the fact that this guy, who is this guy? And he seems to be very involved with the Tavush movement. And then within a few days, suddenly he fell off the face of the earth and he was gone.
And that was bizarre. And here we are. Yeah.
Hovik: Number 15, Hovik. Number 15 is dog. Not the canine, but the dog, he likes to say. And Vardan Ghukasyan.
That’s an upset. Popular, cussing, internet personality. He is also listed on the ballot with a cross-out name, meaning he’s disqualified from the ballot, but other people in the list can still run. And what’s interesting is that simply through this guy being a blogger, he is getting a 3.4% polling in MPG, according to MPG, and that is very close to the threshold.
So he could be a kingmaker or a spoiler, you know, and we’ll see how that goes.
Asbed: A dogged personality. Number 16, Hovik? Civil Contract.
Hovik: If you don’t know who they are, watch a few of our episodes. Enough said, but I will read Harut Sassounian had a very interesting article in the Armenian Weekly. All the faults of Pashinyan, not all of them, some of them, mismanaging the 2020 war with Azerbaijan, which resulted in the loss of Artsakh, allowing the Azerbaijani army to invade and continue occupying more lands in Armenia since 2021 and 2022, declaring in 2022 that Artsakh is part of Azerbaijan, despite previously proclaiming that Artsakh is Armenia period.
Failing in 2023 to prevent the forced displacement of 120,000 to 150,000 Armenians from Artsakh Treating the Artsakh issue as closed and referring to Artsakh refugees as deserters or escapees Claiming that surrendering Artsakh he strengthened Armenia’s independence Interfering in the internal affairs of the Armenian Apostolic Church Failing to secure the release of Armenian detainees and Artsakh leaders held in Baku repeatedly complying with Aliyev’s demands for concessions, any kind of concession. If you need a concession, Pashinyan is your man.
Asbed: Yeah, and somehow they are polling at 29% in the latest MPG poll. The Hayastan Dashink, the full name actually is Hayastan Kusaktsutyunneri Dashink, Armenia Alliance of Parties. This is the party that’s led by Robert Kocharyan, second president of Armenia. Number two is Ishkhan Saghatelyan, who is one of the leaders And then number three is Anna Grigoryan, who’s been a frequent guest on our podcast here.
And we’ve talked to her about their campaign platform, what’s important to them, what’s not important to them. I’m not going to say a lot more. Chances are we’ll talk a little bit more about some of these larger parties tomorrow or whenever we talk with Edgar Elbakyan.
Hovik: At the end of this episode, I also have this heat map of various parties and critical foreign policy issues. So you will see where Armenia Alliance stands. But they’re one of the most pro-Iranian, not pro-Iranian, but one of the biggest proponents of strengthening relations with Iran. Frankly,
Asbed: one of the most realistic foreign policies that’s being advocated right now regarding both TRIPP and Iran and Russia and the United States and the EU.
Hovik: And can I just repeat, Anna Grigoryan, very charismatic and very smart. Watch our interview with her and you will learn a lot about their program. Number 18, Hovik. The ballot number 18 is For the Republic, Hanun Hanrapetutyan.
It’s run by Arman Babajanyan. And always it gets like 1% of the vote in all the elections. He is also very anti-Russian explicitly. I mean, it’s not a ideological issue.
It seems to be like an ingrained issue, liberal by ideology. and his media holding 1in.am is potentially the largest website and internet media service in Armenia. They seem to have a very big presence in Yerevan and their building is decorated with a lot of US flags when you drive by in Yerevan. He’s obviously another one of these pocket opposition parties for Nikol Pashinyan.
Asbed: And number 19, finally, this is bright Armenia, Lusavor Hayastan, and is led by Edmon Marukyan, who used to be actually, how should I say, the collaborator with…
Hovik: Special envoy or special representative.
Asbed: That’s right, he was special envoy. I’m not entirely sure what that meant, but he was basically a plenipotentiary ambassador at large, whatever it was, but he has broken ranks with him.
Hovik: He wanted to be Armenia’s Hikmet Hajiyev.
Asbed: Well, Edmon Marukyan’s party advocates for a European model national state. Once a serious contender, they’re currently struggling for relevance, as a matter of fact, because they were once an ally of Civil Contract, and now it’s not entirely clear what the level of trust is in this party. Let’s go to your heat, Mac, because we will have to wrap up.
Hovik: Yeah, just very quickly, I have to say that maybe in order to differentiate from Civil Contract, they have actually become much more pragmatic. They’re one of the few parties that is explicitly hostile to TRIPP, saying that currently it is essentially encroaching on the sovereignty of Armenia, and they are currently polling at 2.9%. Which is pretty important. Yeah, so they may actually, if they get to the 4% margin, then they may also have a say-so in the parliament.
Asbed: What’s really important to know is that there are three or four parties that are polling in the twos and threes of percent. If you put them together, you can get almost 12, 13% of the vote. And we have seen that the disenfranchised vote, all those people who are voting, I don’t know or I refuse to vote or such things they used to be in the thirties a percent now they seem to be around eight to nine percent those numbers have gone down significantly from the thirties down to the single figures actually yeah how will you discuss the heat map on the positions yeah so we evaluated um
Hovik: The top parties and I think eight parties on various issues such as right of return of Artsakhtsis, relations with Russia, relations with Iran, support of TRIPP, US alignment and EU integration. We will display this heat map on your screen if you’re watching it. But, you know, I would say that essentially we have five opposition parties who have Sort of, you know, I would say, what I would term realistic expectations. That is, Hayastan Dashing, Prosperous Armenia, Strong Armenia, Wings of Unity, and I have to reluctantly say also DOK, based on their platform.
I read their program. and they’re all you know for advocating for the right of return of Artsakhtsis uh keeping relations with our russia strong and having strong relations with iran dog is inimical against uh on trip uh so one of the few outliers the rest of these parties despite being uh advocating for keeping strong relationship with russia are Tolerant of TRIPP, let me just put it that way, they’re not inimical against it, they’re not, you know, I scaled, I scored them in a scale of one to five, so I gave them two and even three, like Strong Armenia, I gave Strong Armenia a three on TRIPP.
Meanwhile, I gave Hayastan Dashing and Prosperous Armenia like twos. So it’s not like they’re against the United States or EU integration. They’re tolerant. They’re saying we’re not going to pursue EU integration, but we need to improve our relations with European Union.
And on the opposite side, essentially the main one is Civil Contract and the Republic Party who have a chance to get in. Now, I didn’t include the meritocratic party. But if they also get in, they would also be like these three parties that any of them, if any of these two meritocratic or republic party get into parliament, they could help Pashinyan a lot.
I have to say a lot of the parties it was very disappointing because one two three four five six seven eight eight parties um or seven parties had no program on the Central Election Commission website I’m assuming that this is not the error of the CEC but they just have not submitted their program uh including the meritocratic party so it’s just like one guy who is again like a YouTube personality on the campaign is able to get Yeah. That seems to be enough to motivate people to respond to an impulse. Okay. Yeah.
So check this out. All this information will also be in the show notes.
Asbed: Okay, folks. That’s all for today. And watch the next episode. We’ll dive a little deeper into the details and focus on some of the bigger parties.
Today is May 22nd. I’m Asbed Bedrossian.
Hovik: And I’m Hovik Manucharyan. Have a great day. Bye-bye.