Warning: This is a rush transcript generated automatically and may contain errors.
Asbed Bedrossian: Hello, everyone. You are in the right place for the Groong Weekend Review for October 25, 2026,
Asbed Bedrossian: It is also a municipal election day around Armenia. 21 communities around the 10 provinces around Armenia, the 10 marzes, are holding municipal elections to re-elect either their city councils or their mayors. But you really wouldn’t know anything about this if you just read the government media, because they really don’t even want you to know or turn out or vote because they’re not very popular. Five communities are holding democratic elections with only one party on the ballot. Those are Vayk, Armavir, Akhuryan, Vardenis, and Garni.
And I was looking up the news a few minutes ago, and Akhuryan stuck out in my news. 304 votes were cast, Hovik. 302 of them were for Civil Contract , because, of course, there’s only one candidate on it.
Hovik Manucharyan: Long live, comrade Stalin.
Asbed Bedrossian: Now, for the sake of democracy, because it wouldn’t be democracy without an opposition, one vote dissented. They voted against the Civil Contract candidate, and one vote was
Hovik Manucharyan: Hwm.
Asbed Bedrossian: Now, okay, this is not funny, but it is laughable. Strong Armenia fielded a single candidate, Arsen Gevorgian, in Stepanavan. Now he’s behind bars after a few
Hovik Manucharyan: One too much,
Asbed Bedrossian: days.
Hovik Manucharyan: one too many, yes, for Civil Contract.
Asbed Bedrossian: That’s right. That’s one too many. And, of course, over a dozen other Strong Armenia people were arrested, but I know you’re going to talk about that in a moment. So let’s just move forward.
Some opposition candidates who were in jail have suddenly seen the light and become supporters of the Civil Contract. And they’re running on that party’s list, as a matter of fact. Miraculously, all charges against them that basically caused them to be in jail for months and months have been dropped. Amazing.
We’re looking at you in Goris. Another candidate was maybe a little even smarter than that. She was made an offer she could not refuse, perhaps, and has applied to become a member of the Civil Contract also. She is running for the mayorship of her city in Amasya.
Jemma Harutyunyan, we’re looking at you. So to summarize a little bit, the atmosphere is tense. There have been a number of calls to the CEC. And in general, the level of the so-called administrative resources is extreme.
The country is already mostly a one-party rule. The police and the judiciary are fully controlled by the executive, really by one person, Pashinyan, to serve Pashinyan. And Pashinyan, of course, aims to please Azerbaijan and Turkey.
Hovik Manucharyan: So, folks, we’re recording this on Sunday evening, and the results of the precincts are coming in. But to be honest, I want to say, and we’ll cover these next week, but to be honest, I want to say don’t hold your breath for most of these. In fact, I don’t even know what will happen in Stepanavan. You know, Civil Contract will, quote unquote, win these elections because they have effectively removed any semblance of an opposition, any opposition candidate that is in their way.
They have removed them, sometimes surgically, sometimes in,
Asbed Bedrossian: I mean, they’re in jail.
Hovik Manucharyan: say, blunt way. Yeah, yeah, they’re in jail. and these people are you know, and most people who vote are now faced with, in the absence of any sort of opposition candidates or their candidates being in jail are going to be faced with a rational choice: do I vote for this unknown person whom I ideologically align with or do I ensure that the next mayor is my relative or is my employer because a lot of these people, a lot of these towns have a lot of administrative resources. there’s also all these rumors that, you know, all the votes are being recorded on cameras.
So simple people in simple villages are being, you know, scared away from thinking even about voting for the opposition. And then when they think even more rationally, they’re going to, many of them, unfortunately, vote for Civil Contract simply because when they go and complain about their pothole, they want someone they know, they want their relative to be at city hall rather than someone they don’t know. That’s municipal elections in Armenia.
Asbed Bedrossian: I put the link to an article in the show notes which shows a video of a person voting in a booth. I mean, they were recording it.
Hovik Manucharyan: Oh, they were recording the, yeah.
Asbed Bedrossian: Mm-hmm.
Hovik Manucharyan: So, yes,
Hovik Manucharyan: I mean, there will be the regular falsifications, intimidations, but for all intents and purposes, essentially, the opposition is going to go into this with both hands tied behind their backs. What’s interesting is the turnout, like, as of 5 p.m. today was released. in Stepanavan, which is one of the only, I guess, communities where Strong Armenia is participating, they have 58.36% of the turnout as of 5pm.
Asbed Bedrossian: Ugh.
Hovik Manucharyan: Now, everywhere else, it’s very low. Sometimes in the 20s, sometimes in the 30s. The next runner-up is Tsaghkadzor with 50%. But it’s interesting that Stepanavan and I still don’t know what that could mean because as I said the power of administrative resources, the power of intimidation is big and the Civil Contract is going all in, in Stepanavan especially so let’s wait and see the results but I think that we should, let’s also double click on what’s going on in Stepanavan, this is one of these smaller communities.
So at a national scale, it’s the 25th in terms of population size. Only about 12,000 people live there. And Civil Contract has been governing this community since 2021. The November elections there had achieved a turnout of 38% only.
So as of 5 p.m. today, we have a much higher turnout. but Civil Contract got 78% of the vote. Again, this is the power of administrative resources, this is the power of clan membership and clan voting. So this year, Strong Armenia and Samvel Karapetyan’s party decided to contest these elections and field a candidate along with four other parties. So altogether there were five parties in this contest.
And I think this was, as I said, this is one, you know, for Strong Armenia, this is one too many for Pashinyan. And Pashinyan wants to do everything to ensure that he wins in Stepanavan. And four days before the elections, they arrested 14 people from Strong Armenia. The following day, they arrested 10 more.
So altogether there are about 24 people. These are people from their campaign staff. These are the mayoral candidates for Stepanavan, of course, and also some of the city council candidates or what they call avagani here or the Council of Elders. But essentially, they have hamstrung the entire campaign by doing this.
Asbed Bedrossian: So I think this was on October 21.
Asbed Bedrossian: What exactly transpired, Hovik?
Hovik Manucharyan: Well, the government placed secret cameras in their campaign headquarters, and recorded people allegedly or apparently exchanging money. And the government alleges that these were vote bribes, because, of course, any exchange of money, you know, it looks bad. And we know from the, similar tactics were used in the June parliamentary elections , where they arrested hundreds of Strong Armenia supporters and campaign members. Now, Strong Armenia claims that they engaged in no wrongdoing.
Any exchange of money was for legitimate campaign activities. But, you know, now they have to go and prove that in court.
Asbed Bedrossian: Hovik, the interesting thing is this is kind of the equivalent of the American Watergate. They’re putting video cameras and recording what the other political parties are doing and arresting people. Now, it’s interesting also to know that Strong Armenia is defending itself. So it’s on its back feet, right?
Instead of saying that this is a gross invasion of privacy, it’s extralegal, it’s just a horrible situation. And yet most people are not really debating if the government can really do these things. They’re just defending that what was seen on the video was taken out of context, was not edited properly, or mis-edited, etc., etc.
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah.
Asbed Bedrossian: These are all defenses. while I think the government was absolutely in the wrong doing these things and should be sued.
Hovik Manucharyan: Well, I think, well, I mean, we have so many of these recordings, illegal wiretaps. None of these cases have, I think most of these cases haven’t resulted in any verdicts for the government. So I think we’re way beyond the point of being shocked that the government can do this. And unfortunately, what the government does is, okay, you know, there’s a case, let’s go to court, let’s have this evidence kept secret until the court date, and only in court we can reveal the evidence.
But what they do is they leak, of course, the evidence. So all the pro-Pashinyan PR, which is significant, is showing these videos, which Strong Armenia says have been edited out of context. I’ve personally seen examples of this with Bagrat Galstanyan’s case, Bagrat Srbazan’s case, where the government has a strong track record of recording these things out of context, Strong Armenia basically says that releasing these videos that are edited out of context is meant to stymie their campaign because also their campaign headquarters have been sealed.
So in just about two days, they had to stand up an entirely new campaign headquarters with new staff just for these elections. And of course, the PR now is strong. And I think what the government is hoping is that this will discourage Strong Armenia supporters from going to the polling booth and voting for the opposition in Stepanavan.
Asbed Bedrossian: Yeah, that’s right.
Hovik Manucharyan: This is unfortunately what’s going on, and it’s a level, I would say, of authoritarianism, totalitarianism, brutalism but who cares no one’s going to give a damn about these elections unfortunately in terms of the international reaction and the headlines you’re going to see are that Civil Contract
Asbed Bedrossian: Well, when you say international media, you’re talking about the Western media.
Hovik Manucharyan: sweeps most of the elections in Armenia.
Asbed Bedrossian: And basically, Pashinyan is bankrolled by these people. So, of course, they’re not going to say anything.
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah.
Asbed Bedrossian: They have provided, you know, they’ve provided every kind of support for this guy to stay in power.
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah.
Asbed Bedrossian: So they’re not going to say anything about it. Meanwhile, if you look at the other side, the Russians, for example, never even congratulated him for his June election.
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah.
Asbed Bedrossian: but Russia is not doing anything to interfere in
Hovik Manucharyan: Thank you.
Asbed Bedrossian: these elections.
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah, exactly. I mean, yeah, it’s mostly the West. Pashinyan is a puppet of the West. He was placed in Armenia, I would say.
My personal belief is 2018 was a very elaborate intelligence operation, just like a lot of the color revolutions are. but I think even in the lists of color revolutions we’re not even included there because no one outside of the region no one really cares about Armenia the farthest south they’ll go is probably Georgia
Asbed Bedrossian: Yeah.
Hovik Manucharyan: when they think about these but 2018 was a strong case of western intervention in terms of regime change and it is going on still so whoever put him in power is continuing to support him. And you know, you can figure out who it is.
Asbed Bedrossian: Well, we’re talking about elections. There’s a little more news about elections. Now, it’s pretty clear that Ilham Aliyev has been sending a lot of signals and applying a lot of pressure on Pashinyan to start delivering what he promised now that he has remained in power after June 7. And one of those main requirements was the change of the Armenian constitution.
And there are many other things as well, but let’s just stick to the constitution topic right now. And as we know, Pashinyan failed to get a majority of the popular vote in June and barely got a technical majority in the parliament seats through fraud, if I might add. And now he’s unable to deliver a change of the constitution democratically. Now, the parliamentary opposition, and I’m talking about Strong Armenia and Armenia Alliance, is dead set against a referendum to change the constitution to Aliyev’s specifications. negotiations .
Pashinyan is dead set to make it happen. And during a press conference this past week, he said that he would try to convince the opposition MPs. And it’s not really clear exactly what he meant by convincing, you know.
Hovik Manucharyan: A dagger to the side, maybe? I don’t know, you know,
Asbed Bedrossian: his goal is actually to somehow Yeah, split six opposition votes to get him a constitutional majority so that he can pass this referendum topic. Now, I think he will probably try. I’m sure that the NSS is very busy looking through kompromat on every member of the parliament to see who can be influenced or who cannot be. But like I said, I don’t know exactly what convincing or coercing means from his press conference.
Barring that, I guess, he said that holding parliamentary snap elections was not out of the question. This was interesting to just about everyone. And of course, Narek Karapetyan, leader of the Strong Armenia party, replied, we’re ready. Just give us the date on which this is going to happen.
Is this a desirable path for the opposition?
Hovik Manucharyan: Before we go there, Asbed, can I just maybe, putting aside my humility a little bit,
Asbed Bedrossian: Haha.
Hovik Manucharyan: say that I predicted this exact scenario. I mean, if we assume that the opposition stays strong and doesn’t flip, and at least Pashinyan is not able to flip the six opposition votes in parliament through kompromat, through intimidation, through scare tactics, then I think his only other choice is going to be to go for snap elections. And I think Pashinyan will do this not because, I mean, he will do this out of desperation. So it’s very unclear, I think, whether he will be able to achieve better results.
But that’s what he will try. It’s also concerning because I’ve also said in the past that he will try to before doing these snap elections he’s going to try to ban the opposition parties but even if he doesn’t ban them all of them are in jail all their leaders are in jail. Samvel Karapetyan remains under house arrest his electric networks in Armenia have already been nationalized even though he was not dependent on income from it but that was sort of one of his biggest contributions. Gagik Tsarukyan is in jail.
All of his business interests are now being dismantled and shuttered at least. Robert Kocharyan is in jail. His pre-trial detention was extended just a few days ago on Friday by another two
Asbed Bedrossian: Mm-hmm.
Hovik Manucharyan: months.
Asbed Bedrossian: And the same for his son, Sedrak, Kocharyan, as well.
Hovik Manucharyan: and a bunch of supporters as well
Asbed Bedrossian: Mm-hmm.
Hovik Manucharyan: or alleged supporters. So the opposition, from this perspective, the opposition is not in a very strong position. So I don’t know how they’re going to campaign in a fair election. And also Pashinyan is going to have the advantage because he’s going to choose a specific time to trigger these snap elections, right?
He’s going to resign twice, it will be, like, and they will fail, quote-unquote, to elect him as prime minister again, and they will double trigger, just the same way he did in 2021.
Asbed Bedrossian: Yeah, and I actually want to go there also, but let me first quickly ask, so
Hovik Manucharyan: So, anyway,
Asbed Bedrossian: what gives Narek Karapetyan the confidence to be boisterous in reply that he is ready for it? On what basis does he think that the opposition is going to do better if there’s a snap election?
Hovik Manucharyan: Are you trying to get me to start criticizing Strong Armenia again, Asbed?
Asbed Bedrossian: Yeah, get in there. Well, I mean, if you need to.
Hovik Manucharyan: Well, honestly,
Asbed Bedrossian: Right? I’m not trying to troll you into it, but I do want to know exactly on what basis he thinks.
Hovik Manucharyan: You should ask him because I don’t know. And to be honest, I think that the opposition is in need of new ideas. They are not doing any street movements. They’re not, you know, there is Arthur Martirosyan, I think, said a few weeks ago, and I believe there is an MPG poll that showed that Civil Contract has increased its rating, mainly because people want to be associated with the victor, right?
Asbed Bedrossian: Right. They want to be on the winning side.
Hovik Manucharyan: And at least those who have doubt whether how treasonous Pashinyan was, they’ve been fed this poison that Kocharyan for 20 years, this bad Karabakhtsi and so forth. So at least for those, the vast segment of the population who has been exposed to that poison, it’ll be easier to say, well, you know, yeah, I had some doubts about Pashinyan, but I’m not going to show them now in polls. So it remains to be seen, but I think that Karapetyan is basically saying that that’s the only choice that they have. They have no way to prevent Pashinyan from triggering snap elections, Civil Contract
Asbed Bedrossian: Mmh.
Hovik Manucharyan: because they have a majority and if he resigns then they will collude to fail to vote him into power and there you go so he’s not going to say oh no please don’t do that
Asbed Bedrossian: There is no history.
Hovik Manucharyan: yeah
Asbed Bedrossian: Yeah, there is no history that says that’s going to happen. Because as far as I can tell, every election, especially snap elections, have always seen the incumbent win. Is that correct? In our history.
At least I’m talking about the history since independence.
Hovik Manucharyan: Well, I think every election, you know, and in Armenia, there hasn’t been a single election where the power has changed through regular elections, let alone snap elections, you will not have time to even prepare for elections. And all of these campaigns, all of these powers are now without their leaders. So if you have two months, because that will be the thing. depending on when Pashinyan chooses to do it anyway, from that point on, there will be two months to prepare for elections. I’m not seeing these parties, I’m not seeing the ARF, I’m not seeing Strong Armenia gearing up.
There should have been street movements now, right?
Asbed Bedrossian: Yeah, yeah, I think two things. I completely agree on the opposition not doing enough. And I’m not, you know, I know that you are talking about street action, like mass action and everything. And I am interested in that kind of action also.
But on the opposite side, these political parties are not doing enough yet in the regions to try and get a foothold. If you look at the various marzes where these elections are happening, it’s Civil Contract against a tiny little local party.
Hovik Manucharyan: Mmh.
Asbed Bedrossian: There aren’t really, there’s not a Strong Armenia in, for example, Armavir or Akhuryan or something like that. Maybe they have a very, very small group that can participate, but there’s not really a party foothold. Well, what are they doing? They should be out there building their base everywhere that is not happening we’re not even talking about street action or anything this is just party building that’s going on can
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah.
Asbed Bedrossian: i take you back for just a moment to 2021 hovey if we have a snap election i think
Hovik Manucharyan: Yes.
Asbed Bedrossian: this can be a reasonable thing but one thing that we must have learned from 2021 is that we need to assure that the election is not going to be falsified. Because in 2021, there was so much support for Pashinyan coming from the West. The amount of funding, security, cyber, media, political support he gets from all these countries, basically leeching off of Armenia’s weakness and insecurity can be nearly insurmountable. And it feels to me like there is a certain amount of capitulation in the people.
They’re just saying, well, we are unable to make any kind of a change. We’re in the hands of bigger powers. And this is what we saw on June 7th as well. Now, if we don’t want a repeat of 2021, back then, Pashinyan supposedly, allegedly resigned, but the entire state apparatus continued to be his tool and protected his re -election.
And the West happily shut up about the whole irregularities and undemocratic outcome. So how do we assure that if there’s a snap election, it’s not managed by Pashinyan and company? The government has to basically resign. The CEC guy has to resign.
The parliament has to find a new way of basically electing a shell government to organize the next election.
Hovik Manucharyan: Asbed, do you really believe in all those things you said?
Asbed Bedrossian: Well, yeah, I believe that if those things happen, we can have some kind of free and fair election.
Hovik Manucharyan: If those things, but we’ll do…
Asbed Bedrossian: But there’s no way we’re going to have that because we have this guy.
Hovik Manucharyan: Exactly.
Asbed Bedrossian: So what are the options since you don’t believe it can happen?
Hovik Manucharyan: I mean, so I look, I was watching. So I don’t want to be entirely pessimistic. So I was watching this interesting video by Aram Abrahamyan from Aravot,
Asbed Bedrossian: Mm-hmm.
Hovik Manucharyan: who we have, we have, you know, given a lot of airtime in the past. And Aravot, if you must know their history, they’re not supporters of the ARF and the opposition today historically.
Asbed Bedrossian: Right.
Hovik Manucharyan: They’ve been more supportive of Ter-Petrosyan. But he was basically, I think he’s one of the most veteran journalists. today I think he’s more balanced, And even though I would say not enough to be anti-Pashinyan. But he believes that Pashinyan will hang on to power until his last breath. So, and just as a prelude, I think Armenia is now an authoritarian country, right?
It has been for a while under Pashinyan. And in authoritarianism, you cannot engineer a change of power through elections. Just like in Azerbaijan, in Baku. That’s the same as in Armenia.
And the more that we pretend, and this is why I criticize Strong Armenia, that, oh, we’re not like those Azerbaijanis in Baku. We have more democracy. Pashinyan enjoys a surprisingly strong level of authoritarianism. Yes, he relies on Western support for it.
He doesn’t have a source of oil and personal armies himself, but his source of power comes from outside. And basically this short video, I think it’s less than five minutes, he enumerates five different ways.
Asbed Bedrossian: So, yeah, Hovik, how does Abrahamyan think that we can effect change?
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah, so number one, natural death. He holds power until his last breath. Now, I’m not wishing, yeah, I’m not wishing death specifically in this case, but I am wishing bitter, bitter punishment to the maximum extent of the law, to be honest. But the number one, number two, massive riots and revolutions.
Previous years have shown that this is somehow not happening in Armenia. Although we have had a lot of precedent, we’ve had a lot of people on the street. And this is why I think that any revolution requires external sponsors. So in the absence of external sponsors, I don’t think there will be any revolutions in Armenia.
And I think that Aram Abrahamyan agrees with that. Number three, a palace revolution. Asbed, can you imagine Suren Papikyan with his potbelly former history teacher who now I don’t know who thinks
Asbed Bedrossian: I…
Hovik Manucharyan: he’s defense minister, he’s going to engineer, like, a military coup in Armenia
Asbed Bedrossian: That’s laughable.
Hovik Manucharyan: or any of the clowns like any of the clowns that Pashinyan and the West and the CIA
Asbed Bedrossian: Completely laughable.
Hovik Manucharyan: have set up to rule Armenia? Do you think any of them could take on this role?
Asbed Bedrossian: These people are feeding off of the highest, craziest paychecks. They’re not about to rebel against their boss.
Hovik Manucharyan: Yes. Okay. So that’s number three. Number four is like basically some kind of an understanding arrangement in the upper echelons of power in Armenia, in Armenian society.
But again, I think that I agree with him, with Abrahamyan, that this is also ruled out because Pashinyan will never cede power voluntarily. Because as soon as he does, it’s going to be his end in terms of… freedom at least, let me just put it that way.
Asbed Bedrossian: Hmm.
Hovik Manucharyan: And Number five is strong external pressure. Now, Abrahamyan thinks that this is theoretically possible, but, you know, but this external pressure, you know,
Asbed Bedrossian: Who’s left, Hovik? Where is it going to come from?
Hovik Manucharyan: but this external pressure, he thinks, and I agree with him, will come not from Russia, but from the West. Abrahamyan, uh,
Asbed Bedrossian: So is it the thought that the West is going to have some kind of a split
Hovik Manucharyan: this is
Asbed Bedrossian: or a schism about what’s going on in the South Caucasus and maybe different groups are going to start backing different parties, let’s say, in Armenia?
Hovik Manucharyan: More likely, I think that if they see that Pashinyan is failing to enact their desires or is, you know, they might try to put someone else in power. I think they have hopes in Ararat Mirzoyan and Ruben Rubinyan, one of those people, maybe even Tigran Avinyan. There are different rumors on, yes, yes, yes.
Asbed Bedrossian: As successors to Pashinyan if he fails. Okay, can you define failure for me?
Hovik Manucharyan: So I think they do have a plan B.
Asbed Bedrossian: I mean, I know I’m digressing a little bit from elections, but how is failure defined?
Hovik Manucharyan: Failure to change the constitution, failure to comply with Turkey’s and Azerbaijan’s demands to the fullest, I would say, and European demands. Failure to alienate Russia, which we’re now seeing a little bit where Pashinyan is teetering in terms of Russian nuclear power plants. so that’s another thing I think that they might if they get pissed off at Pashinyan they might try to do something but what’s interesting is that he sees like the most likely scenario and as unlikely as it is he sees Pashinyan ruling until his death which is sad
Asbed Bedrossian: Can I just add one thing about Russia, Hovik? A lot of opposition and some people think that Russia is going to start meddling in Armenia and making something happen. That, you know, Russia has been extremely transactional and self-serving as far as Armenia goes, and that has done a lot of harm to Armenian national interests. As far as I can see, if Pashinyan were to agree to a couple of key concessions to keep Russia where it wants to be in the South Caucasus, for example,
Hovik Manucharyan: Mmh.
Asbed Bedrossian: he awards them the contract for the next nuclear power plant or the railroad concessions. And I think, you know, the more I think about these railroad concessions, the more I kind of understand why it’s such a lightning rod of these topics. As far as I can see, they have no ideological objections to keeping this traitor in power.
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah.
Asbed Bedrossian: So in my view, they’re not really a factor in domestic choices.
Hovik Manucharyan: And there’s only one power in the world that has regime change and revolutions in its toolbox, and that is the West, that is the United States,
Asbed Bedrossian: Mm-hmm.
Hovik Manucharyan: that is Europe, unfortunately. Russia, at least under Putin, and maybe even a few years before that, they have been very hesitant in using their power to engineer revolutions, which is why I think it’s also difficult for the opposition. You know, unless there is strong external support for any revolutionary movement, because, for instance, I think it’s very easy to get a million people into the streets in Armenia. Someone like Robert Kocharyan and Samvel Karapetyan could do it.
But the moment the question comes, okay, if there is a change of power, are you going to have Russia defend this new government in the UN Security Council when they vote to sanction Armenia? Are you going to have Iran and Russia stand up for Armenia in case Turkey and Azerbaijan try to sort of provoke something? Those are questions that I always ask myself. And unfortunately, hope that there’s a possibility that that will be the case.
But until the Iran war ends, until the Ukraine war ends, we’re in this limbo where I don’t know what the answer to those questions is. And I’m not saying that Russia or Iran or any other non-Western power would meddle in Armenia’s relations. But I think if there is a street change, if there is a change, then I think they could react positively to Pashinyan, who has been doing everything to undermine their geopolitical sort of power in the region. But unfortunately, I don’t see that possibility.
And this is why I think this is a very dangerous time when Pashinyan, if he has snap elections, he might even try to go for that two-thirds majority, which will allow him to have this constitutional referendum.
Asbed Bedrossian: Well, that would be the goal. I mean, that would be the reason why he goes for it.
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah. Yeah.
Asbed Bedrossian: And so
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah.
Asbed Bedrossian: if he goes for it, I would say that under the current circumstances, it’s going to be engineered that way.
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah.
Asbed Bedrossian: You know, everybody basically trusted him that he could get the two-thirds majority he wanted, just like he has it now, and he failed. So if he goes for it, I think the West is going to basically bring in the kind of support that’s needed so that he gets his two-thirds majority.
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah.
Asbed Bedrossian: Add one additional thing to Abrahamyan’s multiple ways of maybe these guys going out of power. Like any authoritarian system, eventually the corruption starts eroding the system from inside. And we talked a little bit about this with Vache Gabrielyan a few days ago. And you and I have talked about this before.
These crazy bonuses that are being offered to people who work in the system. Right. The current ones are at the level of 70 percent bonuses. And yet, when we look at the state budget and how it is completed, for example, 2026, and now we have a budget for 2027.
When we look back at the economy so far, it looks like there’s a huge amount of under execution of the capital projects in Armenia. We’re talking about defense. We’re talking about the Ministry of High Tech, every other place. At some point, Hovik, these bonuses are going to people supposedly for their loyalty, but they’re also reinforcing inefficiency and ineptitude.
A whole bunch of people who are not trained properly or who don’t know how to do their jobs are being rewarded simply because they don’t speak up against the government. And eventually, the government will start failing from inside. What do you think?
Hovik Manucharyan: The government has already failed multiple times over. If you look at the debt, the debt has more than doubled since Pashinyan has come to power.
Asbed Bedrossian: Mm-hmm.
Hovik Manucharyan: But I think it’s possible to, as long as Pashinyan complies with the geopolitical demands of the countries that power the IMF and all these Western lending institutions, they will always give money to Armenia to, they will try to keep Pashinyan in power that way. And Armenia is small enough that it’s not very expensive to do that. But will they continue to do that? Will Armenia be important enough to them strategically?
I think while this Ukraine and Iran war are going on, I think maybe so. But yes, eventually once Armenia’s importance maybe degrades because they got everything they want, or these wars really change the geopolitical situation in such a way that supporting Armenia as a wedge against Iran and Russia becomes less feasible, then maybe things will change. And the IMF will come down hard and stop giving any more money and demand austerity and things like that.
Asbed Bedrossian: You’re spot on. Spot on.
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah.
Asbed Bedrossian: You know how I’ve always said that the United States can borrow all it wants, because as long as it’s the reserve currency of the economy, it can print its way out of problems, and
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah.
Asbed Bedrossian: Armenia can’t. But Armenia’s equivalent of the United States printing dollars is basically its ability to constantly borrow with promises. And at some point when it’s no longer able to borrow from the IMFs, the World Banks,
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah.
Asbed Bedrossian: the ADBs or whatever from the West, essentially, that’s when they’ll start crumbling because they’re not in a good place outside of that. So as long as they can borrow and pay people, they’re going to be OK.
Asbed Bedrossian: Okay, Hovik, I’d like to close this week with kind of a personal statement. In the past couple of weeks, the Armenian diaspora has lost two very valuable people, and more than that, both of them were very, very dear and personal friends of mine, so I want to take a moment to remember them.
Asbed Bedrossian: Rita Vorperian passed away on October 13. As she emigrated from Lebanon to Los Angeles in the late 70s, she remained very involved in the Armenian community here in Los Angeles. She was a founding member of Hamazkayin Western Region. She was for decades the leader of the ARS Western Region, taking it from kind of a community relief organization to one with a global reach for all Armenian communities.
If you recall the Syrian relief, that was an ARS thing a few years ago when our communities in northern Syria got hammered when the war was decimating them, essentially, like the Armenians in Aleppo, etc. All of that said, to me, Rita Vorperian was actually Rita tantig. She knew me literally from the day that I was born. She and my mom were close friends since their days as high school friends at Karen Jeppe, and they gave birth together at the same hospital two days apart to me and Harry Vorperian, my brother from another mother.
So the loss of Rita Vorperian hit me very hard and in a personal way.
Asbed Bedrossian: Now, Osheen Keshishian passed away on October 19, and he was the publisher and editor of the Armenian Observer English-language newspaper and a close friend of my mom and dad. So as a friend of our family, for decades, he would come over very often, or there would be some kind of a function. And always he had the latest stories, adventures, because he traveled a lot, and news and inside information that you’d never heard of. And his storytelling was so animated and interesting that he captivated the entire room.
When Osheen spoke, people would just kind of shut up and listen to his stories. He was a happy, jolly guy with unlimited energy and love for all things Armenian. For both Rita and Osheen, we’re going to put links in the show notes so you can read a little bit about them. Both Rita and Osheen were of that golden generation, the one that I call Zartonki Serount, the post-genocide generation of reawakening that stood up, reclaimed, and revived our Armenian identity.
My generation and next generations would not be around if it weren’t for these steadfast, brilliant Armenians to their core. My mom and dad among them, of course. My mom’s gone. My dad’s gone.
Rita, Osheen, I hope that you are all having a ball up there somewhere together. Much love and respect to you. We miss you all and your whole golden generation. May you rest in peace.
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah, two big losses for the Armenian diaspora, Armenian community in LA and beyond. My condolences as well to the families and to the Armenian community for these losses.
Asbed Bedrossian: Yeah. Yeah. All right. Let’s leave it there for today.
Asbed Bedrossian: Thank you, everyone, for listening. Don’t forget to support us. Podcasts.groong.org slash donate once, twice, or become a sustaining member. And we appreciate you all.
Hovik Manucharyan: Keep the lahmajuns coming. I’m Hovik Manucharyan.
Asbed Bedrossian: I’m Asbed Bedrossian. We’ll talk to you next week.