Pashinyan's Pre-Election Spending Was Vote-Buying, Now Comes the Bill
Civil Contract was using very systematic ways to do vote buying. They spent over a billion dollars, and now the bill is being passed on to ordinary consumers and taxpayers.
In the weeks leading up to the June 2026 parliamentary election, the Armenian government announced two major spending initiatives: a pension increase costing approximately 220 million dollars annually and a healthcare reform that funded surgeries for elderly citizens. Neither initiative was budgeted. When the opposition had called for these same measures in prior years, Pashinyan’s government claimed the budget could not support them. Yet suddenly, days before the election, both were implemented.
Asbed Bedrossian and Hovik Manucharyan characterize this as systematic vote-buying using state resources. The timing and lack of budgeting make the electoral intent transparent: show voters tangible benefits right before they vote. The total commitment came to roughly a billion dollars in new annual spending, unfunded from identifiable sources.
Immediately after winning the election, Pashinyan’s government moved to raise excise taxes on cigarettes, vaping products, fuel, and other goods. The stated rationale for tobacco taxes was healthcare and discouraging smoking, but Hovik rejects this as a cover story. He argues that if the government were sincere, it would also tax sugary drinks and processed foods, which cause as much cardiovascular disease and obesity as smoking. The real purpose, both hosts argue, is revenue generation to cover the unfunded spending commitments. While these new taxes may yield 100 to 200 million dollars in additional revenue, they fall far short of the billion-dollar bill now due. Armenia, already carrying significant debt, has locked itself into massive new annual commitments with no clear funding mechanism.