An Administrative Machine, Not an Election Campaign: One Party Controls Every Institution
In 30 years of independence, power has never changed hands through elections. The current campaign isn't about fair competition. It's about survival.
Rafael Ishkhanyan frames Armenia’s 2026 electoral environment within a deeper structural reality: over 30 years of independence, Armenia has never experienced a change of power through elections. Whenever power has shifted, it has resulted from coup or popular uprising, after which the new regime consolidates control through elections designed to legitimize already-captured state institutions. The current system represents what Ishkhanyan calls a de facto one-party state, despite nominal multiparty competition. All leverage and institutional power flows through a single center of political gravity: the executive office.
Law enforcement bodies including the National Security Service, police, Investigative Committee, Anti-Corruption Committee, and Prosecutor’s Office are all subordinate to the prime minister. Their leaders are appointed and dismissed at will, with no parliamentary veto or oversight. The legislature, controlled entirely by Civil Contract since 2018, lacks the power to block any appointment by the opposition. Inside Civil Contract itself, there is no dissent from the prime minister’s preferences.
The consequence, Ishkhanyan argues, is that elections cannot function as mechanisms of accountability or change. Opposition parties compete from a position of profound structural disadvantage, like a featherweight boxer facing a heavyweight. The ruling party possesses an enormous built-in electorate, controls all state resources, can deploy administrative pressure, and faces no institutional checks. Add to this the collapse of traditional criticism that once constrained executive power, and elections become less contests for office than theater legitimizing predetermined outcomes. The recent weeks of persecution, hate speech laws applied selectively, and military service used as punishment represent not aberrations but logical expressions of a system where survival of the ruling coalition takes precedence over legal constraint or fairness.
Transcript
Hovik: Now, this may be a rhetorical question, but I'm going to ask it anyway. Hovik: Is this an election campaign? Hovik: Or is this some kind of an administrative machine mobilized for political survival? Hovik: Can you find any semblance of fairness balance in how the government is approaching this? Rafael: But I think, you know, Armenian elections are very often actually a struggle for survival. Rafael: For one, Rafael: during these 30 plus years of independence, Rafael: we never witnessed change of power through elections. Rafael: It never happened yet. Rafael: Whenever, Rafael: for some reason, Rafael: it was a coup or it was a popular protest, Rafael: someone came to power and then just cemented their power, Rafael: legitimized their power through elections, Rafael: and then kept it as far as there would be some transfer or there would be another Rafael: protest whatsoever. Rafael: So this is one thing. Rafael: Second, as I mentioned, this is basically a de facto one-party system. Rafael: All the leverage belongs to one center of gravity, one center of political gravity. Rafael: If someone was to compete in this election battle, this contest, Rafael: it would be the same as a featherweight boxer who would step into a boxing ring Rafael: with a heavyweight one. Rafael: Of course, Rafael: if you somehow managed to defeat the opponent, Rafael: probably you would be victorious, Rafael: but how is that possible even?