Warning: This is a rush transcript generated automatically and may contain errors.
Asbed: Hello everyone and welcome to this Conversations on Groong episode. It’s May 22. 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.
We did a primer of all the participants in the election in the previous episode, so check that out. I think it’s going to be the previous episode to this one. And today our goal is to do a deeper dive on the handful of participants who are expected to mark a definitive presence in this election and beyond, and look at some of the main issues in the election itself. So we are joined by Edgar Elbakyan, who is a political scientist based in Yerevan.
As part of the Armenian Project, Edgar is also involved in measuring social sentiments. Hello, Edgar. Thank you for joining us.
Edgar: Hi, thank you for having me tonight.
Hovik: Welcome back, Edgar. We’re honored to have you. Now, on this podcast,
Edgar: Thank you. Thank you, the honor is all ours.
Hovik: So on this podcast, we have consistently covered the political developments in Armenia over the past five years. We have witnessed the shock of the 2020 war, the subsequent political upheavals, the 2021 election, and the disappointment when Pashinyan somehow managed to cling to power, many say through unfair elections.
Still, Pashinyan in 2021 was promising liberation of Shushi and Hadrut. he was promising that Armenians of Artsakh would have security and dignity and that was a platform that helped him earn votes at least we like to believe that in 2023 Armenians of Artsakh were erased from their homeland with his cowardly compliance and definitely not what his supporters had voted for and now it is Armenians of Armenia that are seeking security and dignity. But unlike 2021, Pashinyan is more direct this time.
He is promising to change the constitution, hand over enclaves, this inexplicably weird geopolitical project called TRIPP that brings Trump right on Iran’s doorstep for a 99-year lease, The threat of hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis being settled in Armenia, replacing the Catholicos, expressing the desire to join Europe and alienate one of our strongest allies. I don’t know where to stop, but is it too much of an exaggeration to say that this is an existential election for Armenians? What is at stake on June 7th?
Edgar: Thank you once again for having me tonight at Groong Podcast. Not only the upcoming elections, but the situation in Armenia overall is essentially existential, though we as composite opposition have reiterated it that much that maybe somehow this word has even lost its weight Not meaning completely, but the weight of the meaning, the weight thereof. But still, that’s the case because what the current regime, the de facto regime, is really aiming at is a complete capture of suffering narrative. Let me a little bit expand on this.
In politics, especially in war-torn and traumatized societies and countries like Armenia. It is very important, but it’s very important everywhere, especially in countries like us. Who captures, who monopolizes the suffering narrative? That is, who most effectively explains to people the root cause of their sufferings?
Unfortunately, starting from 1990s, the Ter-Petrosyan elite and its ideological and social continuation, Pashinyanist elite, persuaded people that they live bad because of Artsakh issue.
For us scholars, especially social thinkers, it was very intelligible that when they say Artsakh issue, they don’t mean only Artsakh. they mean everything associated with Armenian national struggle with Armenian national identity per se and now they are already revealing their true face because now they not only mention Artsakh/Karabakh but they say you live bad because of Hay Dat because of genocide recognition campaign because of Mount Ararat that is visible from your windows even because of that because of Khorenatsi, because of Mesrop Mashtots. That’s why we have turned him into a QR code instead of very well-known portraits.
This is substantive denationalization and voiding Armenia of its national essence. So for Pashinyan and for some of his followers, not all of them, but for some of his followers, Armenia is not a It’s not a historical civilizational continuity as we grasp it, as we feel it. For them it’s just a territory, 29,748, that number is calibrating the square kilometers he adheres to Armenia.
It’s just another territory and not necessarily Armenian by default. he, some two or three days ago, openly said about it that on this territory history has witnessed status that was not essentially Armenian and so on so coming back to your question and my answer that yes this is existential threat because you cannot, we have a very and descriptive biblical verse for such situations as Jesus Christ put it, a kingdom that is divided against itself cannot last long.
You can have society that is not divided but has different views on tax code, on school uniforms, whether people should wear some ordinary uniform or just whatever people or parent wants. But you cannot have a nation state, you cannot have a sustainable homeland if it is divided by the very meaning, what Armenia means. So this is very serious.
And I’m predicting your upcoming questions, though not Telling still much into that but I understand why some oppositional parties a bit late but still try to resort to adhere to this agenda because the threat is really existential without any exaggeration and being existential also very great danger because the danger also can be small this one is both existential and great
Asbed: So Pashinyan has been preparing for these elections for over a year at this point. He’s been tilting the playing field in his favor by changing laws, arresting opponents, stealing businesses, and even inviting a new so-called rapid response team promising to treat Armenia like another Moldova. Essentially, anything goes to ensure that challengers remain constrained. You are part of the Armenian Project and you have been, over the past year, you’ve been running a number of polls and trying to get a pulse on the Armenian voter.
Can you tell us, Edgar, what are the challenges that you are seeing in polling in an environment where there’s fear, there’s intimidation by the government? Can such a poll result be trusted? And I don’t mean about just yours, but in general, polling.
Edgar: The atmosphere holding sway in Armenia is a in classical scholarly terms it is a research limitation but there are some narrow specialized methodological ways to overcome it but I don’t want to delve much into it because really there is no meaning to delve into methodology I would just like to outline one major problem, one major result outcome from our insight from our latest poll. Maybe not quantitatively, but at least I will provide some insight and some understanding, not numeric, but at least intelligible. During our latest poll, It was conducted late April, early May.
We asked our citizens what they think whether we would have lost Artsakh hadn’t the 2018 revolution taken place. And unfortunately, we see that really numbers don’t matter in this case. The result does matter. We see that de facto regime has managed, successfully managed to win that propaganda battlefield.
And we shouldn’t be surprised with the approval rate, approval, ways of approval, because approval ways also may differ. They may be very modest, very shy and very vulgar and very vivid. So we shouldn’t be surprised neither by the quantitative measurement, quantitative aspect of their approval nor with the qualitative aspect thereof. Because the main issue, the main problem, the main problem that we can try to make him morally, legally, socially accountable is a national issue, namely surrender of Artsakh and consecutive surrenders in order to overcome that one.
It’s only a national issue. But if they have managed, maybe not totally, but at least very substantively, to persuade people that they have no relation, no connection with that disaster, with that catastrophe, Then what else? What’s remaining? Tax code?
Pensions? What? There is no other substantive counterargument that you can win people through it to persuade that he’s an existential threat. Only national issue.
Remove it and you just have preferences. I prefer him, you prefer one, and that’s why we have 18, 19, how many candidates?
Asbed: 19 candidates.
Edgar: Yes.
So when we were conducting so-called after party with our Armenian Project team after field work, some of our team members anecdotally said that the only question we could ask people was the question I already mentioned and based on the results of that question we could assume what is the other outcomes electoral voting preferences voting intention and all other questions because the only variable is this one if really Nikol Pashinyan didn’t have any impact didn’t have any connection with what with what happened to Artsakh Then really we have no other card to play against him He’s just an ordinary 21st century populist leader With some improvements, some setbacks, some obstacles, some improvements, some “unimprovements”.
So my main worry from which all other sub-worries are ensuing is this result
Hovik: I was watching an interview by Samvel Karapetyan today and he was saying that they also conduct regular polling and their results vary from what they’re seeing but one thing he mentioned was very interesting he said that I mean they vary from MPG and other ones but he said that in order to get the necessary number of respondents they have to make 18,000 phone calls to get like one or two thousand respondents is that what you’re seeing in your polls and I’m just wondering because we’re seeing like quite divergent polls right we mentioned just today two polls dropped one from MPG one from IRI The MPG one predicts that the opposition can form a coalition and kick Pashinyan out.
The IRI one says basically it’s a complete like landslide for Civil Contract because…
Edgar: 68% according to IRI.
Hovik: Yeah, if you scale and take out all the parties…
Edgar: Non-substantive responses.
Hovik: Yeah, so I don’t want to believe that pollsters would engage in creative sociology. They wouldn’t just make up numbers. Can you think of some reasons why they have such divergent results? Is it because of how they ask the questions?
Is it how they introduce themselves?
Asbed: Is it because of who they are?
Hovik: Right? When you call and you ask a respondent to answer your questions, do you identify which project you’re from or do you try to remain anonymous? Are others doing that?
Edgar: No, you can’t remain anonymous. That’s unethical and nobody will even engage in conversation if you remain anonymous. No, it’s standard protocol and I guess everybody follows that protocol. You dial If they answer you, you say hello.
We are calling you from the Armenian Project nonprofit organization. We are conducting a poll for the sake of scientific research. Your phone number has been picked up randomly. It has been generated by a computer software.
Nobody has given us your phone number and we are conducting a poll among among adult citizens of Armenia. Would you like to engage in it? Through it, you can voice your opinion and also be helpful, instrumental in a good sense of that word for our research. Either yes or no, or some hesitation or response.
And if you see some opportunity, you say, okay, if it’s not a suitable, convenient time for you now, we can arrange, set up another time which is which works for you and we will redial you that’s it coming to the essence of your question everything not everything but very very much depends on sampling how the sampling is conducted whether it’s really healthy sample. In order to get a healthy sample you really need a randomized sample and also you need that sample represents the actual demographic quotas both by age, by sex, by geographical parameter.
If you are constructing your sample by marzes, then what’s the actual percentage of voters by marzes? So your sample should somehow be representative to that. If you are conducting it through a dwelling type, capital city, villages, other urban areas, other cities. So again, your sample proportion should be identical to real demographic numbers.
So very much really depends on sample. The next is again methodological but field methodological issue. What is the persuasion protocol of interviewers? How they are instructed by the organization to persuade people? whether they stick to second attempt, third attempt protocol or just they dial one number one time because mainly citizens from villages and also undereducated citizens they tend to reject.
If an organization, a company doesn’t have a proper sound persuasion protocol, it means that urban population, especially from Yerevan, and educated population is overrepresented in the sample. So there are many, many methodological things, but unfortunately, as a general issue, polls in Armenia aren’t transparent.
In order to have full poll transparency, they either should be conducted by universities or again if they are conducted by some private organizations think tanks but at least they should be somehow verifiable for the academic scholarly community scholarly community should have access to databases But usually databases in Armenia are treated like sacred cows. Nobody has any access to other entities, other organizations’ database, that’s it. So they are turning from polling into a prophecy.
And when elections take place, the next day we just may state the fact whether the prophecy worked or not. because it’s really either you believe or not but belief is about religion not about polling but since we don’t have that much transparency that’s why actually we now literally now today as you mentioned have two completely different polls in one the opposition, the composite opposition, wins on the other On the other, only one oppositional party passes the threshold. The second oppositional party passes by the law regulations. You know, actually doesn’t pass the threshold, just law regulations help him pass.
It’s not healthy, unfortunately, but it is a societal problem, academic problem, and we cannot heal it in one day.
Asbed: Edgar, there are 19 political forces participating in this election, as we mentioned. We’d love to hear your impression when you talk to voters and their approach to these elections. For example, there’s a lot of fear and intimidation that’s going on in the news. Every day you read there are arrests, there are accusations, there are claims of treason and what have you.
Are you seeing people being motivated to vote?
Edgar: It is very hard to assess. We can just try to measure through polling the numbers. The number of voting intention, participation intention that we got in our latest poll is very, very comparable to the actual number of that of previous elections, 2021. It is not equal, but equivalent.
Almost identical numbers. So much for sociology. If we resort to vulgar sociology that is just blah blah talking with its relatives, neighbors, just random cab drivers and people like that. Again, I don’t see that much enthusiasm as even, for example, back in 2021.
But this is just my impression which has evolved through my own experiences with my, as we call it, with my bubble, inside my bubble. But one thing I can say for sure, because it’s theoretical, not empirical, Having this many candidates is detrimental to the perception of the level of seriousness of the elections. It is a completely different scenario when you have only two forces, de facto government, hypothetically, and the opposite opposition. or even three or even four parties.
But when you have 19 parties, especially in Armenia when there is a deep-rooted perception among common people that nobody cares for the country, nobody cares for the people. It is just a rivalry for positions (“atorakriv”). This number of candidates comes to reinforce this notion. and it deprives the electoral process from the seriousness.
Now we are trying to convince people that this is serious, this is serious, Armenia’s fate is on the table, there is much to lose, much at stake, but come and see that we have 19 parties, so maybe guys just an ordinary election like 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, this is also detrimental and unfortunately some parties were also engaged that, before nominating themselves for running in elections, they had stuck to rhetoric that these elections are not ordinary one, Armenia’s fate is at stake, but now they are participating with no realistic chance to pass the threshold.
For example, or Armenian National Congress I named them because before nominating before nomination they really they had resorted to the rhetoric that we are applying for example now during our podcast this is serious this is serious Armenia is being denationalized, Turkified that all anti-government medium, small, great forces should unite to form a single front against the incumbent government and stuff like that. But they say that they tried to somehow mobilize to gather around one flag but since that was not fruitful that’s why they have now raised their own flag I really can’t get that
Asbed: I completely agree with you that having a choice of 19 parties or platforms to elect from, it could lead to paralysis or discourage people from going. But what do you make of the fact that we’ve seen, at least in polling, the number of disenfranchised voters going down, the people who would say, I will not vote for anyone, the people who say, I don’t know who to vote for. These numbers used to be in the double digits and seem to have gone into the single digits at this point.
Hovik: Well, actually, one pattern I noticed, sorry for interrupting, but one pattern I noticed is that in the polls that are heavily tilted towards Pashinyan, that number is very high. Like the EVN Report poll has like 40%. The IRI poll, I think, has around 30 to 40% as well, people who refuse to answer or had difficulty answering. Now the polls that are tilted towards the opposition, that number is the undecided vote is very low.
Did you notice that as well, Edgar? And how do you explain that? And is it tending lower or is it changing at all?
Asbed: Or is it that certain people do not want to respond to, let’s say, the pro-Pashinyan polls versus the pro-opposition polls?
Edgar: The number of the share not the number, but the percentage share of non-substantive responses to voting intention question in our polls haven’t changed compared with February and now. There are certain acceptable of course tactics to try to get the respective answer from non-substantive respondents. But if there is no way to extract in a proper manner, of course, to extract an answer, statistical science comes to help. You may run a mathematical regression in order to try to understand through a pattern-based categorization. which party is most likely to get the vote of this or that non-substantive respondent.
So basically pro-Pashinyan voters, Strong Armenia voters, and Armenia Alliance voters have inside them, as we call, shy voters, those that have already made up their mind, they know who they are going to vote for, but still they refrain from answering.
Usually there may be much difference between opposition and the ruling regime, but we have noticed that actually some two to three percent each they are trying to conceal their intention so I wouldn’t say that opposition voters or vice versa pro-government voters are much more concealing their voting intention than those of other camps voters so if the poll is conducted soundly in a proper manner then non-substantive vote shouldn’t matter. But there is one hidden component. What is the actual sample? IRI sample size, if I’m not mistaken, was 1,500 or something like that.
So if we remove non-substantive responses to understand what is the sub-sample, through which they get results for the voting intention question. Maybe we get some half of the overall sample. We are still analyzing our results, but our sample size, overall sample size was almost 1,900. So removing non-substantives, we get a subsample of at least 800 people.
That’s already enough to make calculations. So there are really very small details that may change the picture. The reason why we as Armenian Project refrain from making the numbers of voting intention public because we think that besides representing the actual situation on the ground for the time you have conducted fieldwork publishing polling results also have a side effect influencing public opinion as a non-profit organization as a civil national civil society organization we have our own ways to influence somehow the situation, but not through polling. That’s why we refrain from publishing those numbers starting from October until now.
Will you eventually publish them in the future?
Hovik: For historical posterity, like in a year or so forth, do you think that could be…
Edgar: when they will be deprived from their actual significance yeah political
Hovik: significance um edgar now i want to move from the details of the polling methodology and so forth to more in the political realm you as a political scientist you have knowledge of all these polls so looking into all those 19 political forces Which ones are really contenders to be in the next parliament or have a chance to and which ones should throw in the towel and would do good to do that if they truly cared about the election being fair and free and if they were not trying to vaporize votes on purpose?
Edgar: Of course I am going to talk about national camp Strong Armenia and the Armenia Alliance definitely pass the threshold numbers don’t matter they do pass. And Prosperous Armenia has realistic chance to do that as for the others. I’m not quite positive about it, but that’s the numbers. Yes, they may change.
If they change for the good, then I’ll be happy to be mistaken for now. But definitely these two parties, alliances, pass. I mentioned those that have Certain or realistic chance to pass So others are others Okay,
Hovik: but I have a slightly different question. Wings of Unity, you know, I don’t want to ask you whether they’ll pass, but are they stealing votes from other opposition? Or is it a disjoint electorate that would get that vote no matter what? Or are they maybe stealing votes from Pashinyan?
What is your thought about that?
Edgar: Some of their votes could have easily gone to Strong Armenia.
Hovik: Right.
Edgar: Yes. They have some distinct electoral base, no matter how large or how tiny, but they have some distinct electoral pool. But maybe one third of their votes could have easily gone to Strong Armenia
Hovik: There’s these few parties that were previously unknown to me until a year ago. One of them is the Meritocratic Party of Armenia. And it seems to have a little significant weight in the polls that I’ve seen recently, not quite at 4%. What is the chance for a party like that entering parliament and I should say that they’re completely in terms of I would say the Meritocratic Party is probably more anti-Russian than Civil Contract you know they have announced that Russia is the enemy of Armenia so what are the chances of a party like that entering parliament, in your opinion?
Edgar: As far as I see it, they are accumulating votes among educated middle-class or upper-middle-class urban population mostly Yerevan population it is very worrisome not that not that single standalone case but the very phenomenon of an unknown party of a party having been established I guess one year ago to get this much votes it means a lot and it speaks a lot about the Armenian political field, about voter frustration and political apathy among our society as much as for predictions very much depend on turnout numbers.
There may be some turnout numbers which will make it possible, which will enable the party you mentioned to pass the threshold.
Asbed: Edgar, just a quick follow-up. When you say middle class urban population, are we talking about the people in Yerevan who have all these new apartments and are doing well? So basically I’m trying to understand, are they stealing votes from Civil Contract or are they stealing votes from opposition side?
Edgar: It is hard to answer. No, I meant established families, established households that Don’t suffer that much that don’t actually undergo severe financial economic hardship they are socially and economically established which enables them to some degree get involved and engaged and generally be interested in Armenian politics and Their preference is being inclined towards this party as a new party. Also the leader, again, previously very, very much unknown leader of that party is being very vocal. This time we have asked people if there is any expert whom they follow. who speaks about politics, political stuff.
We have asked our respondents to name them. He’s not the leading one or even the second, but he’s among the top guys that our citizens follow. Not necessarily all of them are going to vote for him, but he has some active share in people’s hearts and minds. This is very illustrative of the essential emptiness, voidness of Armenian political thought, Armenian political philosophy, and Armenian politics as such.
Asbed: Yeah. Maybe it’s just my impression that the urban middle class people who are, let’s say, financially safe, they have a roof over their heads, might want continuity, so they’ll just vote for the current government and say, let’s just keep the status quo and continue going on. I don’t know. Let me move to issues such as education, healthcare, economy.
These are really important, and it’s It’s very important to have these things straight if you’re going to have a strong state, as a matter of fact, a strong nation. And we have seen some opposition parties emphasizing even doubling down on these issues. But it seems that even for Armenia, this is not a regular election. As we said, this is kind of an existential situation.
Many of us feel that if the current government is reelected, then we’re going to have serious problems in the coming five years. Are standard campaign issues such as education, healthcare, economy important for Armenia in any election? And if not, what are the important issues for the opposition to focus on during this election?
Edgar: My strong conviction is that they should have from the very beginning, from the very outset of electoral campaign because actually it has started at least one year ago, not some three weeks ago, but one year ago, they could have stuck to a national issue. You see that Strong Armenia has adopted this rhetoric maybe some seven, five, nine, ten days, not more. Even Samvel Karapetyan announced that when they take the power through elections, they are going to pass a law forbidding Azerbaijanis from having the right to own property in Armenia.
Asbed: That was huge.
Edgar: But unfortunately, they wasted almost a year. Starting from June, they wasted all this time. and propagating economic relief, propagating, creating new jobs and stuff like that. And these things have already stuck to their political brand. And now Samvel Karapetyan himself tries to open up this Pandora’s box containing national issues I’m not sure how much resonance will it get given this short time period some fortnight is remaining before the elections I think that the basic battlefield should remain the national issue because in all other fields he will outsmart us he will beat us Take as an example the issue of rising pensions.
In Armenia three oppositional groups, forces, have been forcing this agenda, putting forward, advocating this agenda that the pensions should be increased. But Pashinyan did that because he is running the state apparatus and those three forces had just to say that look we forced him to do that but it’s just very poor propaganda because in people’s mind it was him who did that And if you normalize this type of propaganda about pensions, about tax code, electoral code, no matter what kind of court, school reform, so you give him all the necessary cards to beat you.
By the way, in a very fair, relatively, of course, technically fair environment, his government, doesn’t he have the right to increase the pensions?
Hovik: Yeah, and no one cares about the skyrocketing national debt.
Asbed: I want to ask a question about that since we’re talking about that. Edgar, why isn’t the army more of an issue, more of a central issue in this campaign? I mean, where is the security of the country right now with supposedly the army reduced in numbers? I don’t know where spending is for the national defense.
I just have no idea exactly what the state of the army is, because any time you ask somebody, it’s become a state secret to talk about the army. And I don’t mean just the army, the armed forces.
Edgar: Unfortunately, yes, the issue of the army has been transformed by the de facto regime from a state security, state preservation apparatus to a well-established kitchen. Whenever you ask common folks about the army, they say now they serve better food in the army. as if the army is about getting free food. The reason why this is not one of the cornerstones of the pre-electoral campaign propaganda is that the opposition, which was supposed to raise this issue, unfortunately to this or that extent adheres to the notion that because people are afraid of A war, of war casualties, let us not open up, not bring up this topic that much.
Just say some necessary and regular stuff that we are going to improve, do better things, but not bring it to the cornerstone, to the very heart of the discussions and pre-electoral polemic and campaign. because people are afraid of war. Technically they are right, but strategically I am afraid that this is not a good approach because there are certain situations and maybe the most brilliant example in the world history is Winston Churchill’s famous quote dating back to May 1940 when he said to his own people that I have nothing to promise to you besides tears, blood, and sweat.
Not every day, but there are situations in any nation’s history when the main task of the elite or counter-elite, depending on the status, is to empower people, is to drive away the fear from the people. Because the ones who impose the aforementioned fear in the Armenian nation are Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Ilham Aliyev and Nikol Pashinyan. If you accept the aftermath, the consequences of their politics, then you accept the rules of the game. and you just try to tactically maneuver within those rules, but you cannot maneuver through it.
For example, if you say that we are going to pursue the realization of the right to return of Artsakh Armenians, you don’t say that we are going to re-liberate it because whenever you say it, people will be frightened, they won’t vote for you. Okay, but still you say that you are maneuvering and you just say the right to return. A little bit clever pro-Pashinyan voter may ask: How are they going to return? Are they going to live under the Azerbaijani flag?
Or are you going to reliberate it through the blood of our 18-year-old kids? Tell us the truth. And what’s your answer? You got no answer.
So there are some situations when you need to be sincere, if you are sincere. And this is the cornerstone of the elections, peace or not peace. But the main task of the opposition should have been persuading people that, dear zhoghovurd, our dilemma is not peace or war; our dilemma is not comfort or national burden.
Our dilemma is whether to accept next Azerbaijani strike unprepared and thus get exterminated or whether to try to thwart any possibility of next Azerbaijani strike but even if it, God forbid, takes place be prepared and counter it with a dignified way to stand our ground and stuff like that but unfortunately they tried to circumvent this topic as if it doesn’t exist but it exists people know that it exists and it is only Pashinyan who gives a false but still comprehensive answer to that concern if I am here in this cabinet, there is no war
Hovik: Edgar, I have two questions and very little time, so five minutes. I’m wondering if we can fit both of them. But a year ago, Pashinyan increased his campaign against the Armenian Apostolic Church. We have four bishops and archbishops imprisoned, many more under conditional release and so forth.
The church is clearly being persecuted. And even Samvel Karapetyan went to jail and eventually he’s in house arrest because he said we will support the church in our own way. I mean, it’s despicable, it’s regrettable that we’re even having to be forced to see this. But from the political perspective, it seems to have been like a gift from Pashinyan to the opposition.
We’re not seeing the church at all being talked about during this campaign. Why? And yeah, I just wanted your thoughts on… I mean, it seems to be a very simple and low-risk issue for the opposition to take on.
Edgar: I don’t know I really don’t know this answer is maybe if we dig deeper we even can find some oil reserves in Armenia but compared to that we can very rarely very seldom hear this answer I don’t know but I don’t I really don’t know because The campaign against the church was, I think, premature. I am thinking in Pashinyan’s vocabulary, of course. As for me, it should never happen at all. But in his own vocabulary, in his own strategy, I think it was premature.
It temporarily failed. It failed also due to the joint opposition and joint resistance by all oppositional factions, but I really don’t know, nothing comes to my mind why they don’t stick to that topic, especially Strong Armenia whose odyssey started from advocating for the church. I don’t know why then they speak about demographic invasion by Azerbaijan they speak about Turkification of Armenia but yes you are right topic of church is not mentioned that much it’s not now I’m trying to recall I don’t remember anything any piece of propaganda material and I really don’t know why sorry
Hovik: All right. Well, I really appreciate your time. And just to close our discussion today, do you think that these elections will end on June 8th? And what happens afterwards?
What are some of the scenarios that you foresee? And especially, I keep asking this question to everyone, and I think I asked you on another panel the other day, Why aren’t the opposition parties developing the street movement in parallel? Because we know that already the battlefield is not fair, is tilted, and if the citizens’ vote is taken away from them,
Edgar: Shouldn’t the opposition be prepared ahead of time? They should have conducted that type of preparations five years ago as well. They should do it right now. I don’t base my answer on any insight from within, as we say in Armenia.
I just base my answer on my own observations, on common sense, on the field observations I do every day. Neither do I see any preparations now, nor do I see the preconditions for June 8th, as you mentioned, June 9th and so on.
I see very, very much ungrounded optimism. we can suppose that this optimism is being spread for propaganda purposes and that can be justified but unfortunately I think that it’s not only propaganda but it’s also belief that the spreader believes himself in self-deception yes I don’t see preparations I don’t see cadres, people, folks who are ready to conduct that type of activities because that type of activities needs a completely different personality type, running for the elections needs a completely different personality type, so you should have both.
I know that Armenia Alliance and all of us know that Armenia Alliance has experience with street movements or leading protests starting from 2022. As for Strong Armenia, I really don’t see any preparations though. Okay, if we come to insights, I know that they assert within inner circle, within people they want to persuade, so-called national field that we are preparing for that scenario as well. What can I say?
Let us be wrong and let them be right. Let us be pessimistic, but reality flips to the opposite. So we will see. But unfortunately, Nowadays, I don’t sense it.
I don’t feel it being on the ground.
Asbed: Okay, Edgar, we’re going to leave it there for today. Thank you so much for joining us. We hope to talk with you sometime soon.
Edgar: Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Asbed: Take care. Thank you very much, Edgar. All right. Well, that was our show recorded on May 22nd, 2026.
We’ve been talking with Edgar Elbakyan, who is a political scientist and social thinker based in Yerevan, Armenia. He is the co-founder of the Armenian Project nonprofit organization, which contributes to enhancing Armenian national civil society. For more information, check our website, podcasts.groong.org slash episode number. I’m Asbed Bedrossian.
Hovik: Talk to you soon. Take care