How Pashinyan Leaks Secret Videos to Smear the Opposition
They say keep the evidence secret until the court date. Then they leak it.
Hovik lays out the mechanics of how secret recordings are used against the opposition in Armenia. Officially, he says, the government claims evidence will be kept secret until the court date and revealed only in court. In practice, the footage is leaked, and the significant pro-Pashinyan PR apparatus broadcasts videos that Strong Armenia says have been edited out of context. He cites the case of Bagrat Galstanyan, known as Bagrat Srbazan, as an example of what he calls a strong government track record of recording things out of context.
The clip is effective because it explains a repeatable tactic in plain terms: record in secret, seal the campaign headquarters, leak selectively edited clips, and let the PR machine do the rest. With headquarters sealed, Hovik notes, a party has only about two days to stand up an entirely new campaign office with new staff before an election. He frames the goal as discouraging Strong Armenia supporters from turning out to vote in Stepanavan.
This connects to the episode’s broader argument about media control, political prisoners, and the fairness of elections under Pashinyan. The hosts compare the use of hidden cameras to a kind of Watergate, while noting that the public debate has shifted onto whether the footage was edited rather than whether the surveillance was lawful in the first place. For an audience following Armenian news and human rights, this segment is a concise explainer on how information itself becomes a campaign weapon, and why the hosts argue the playing field is tilted well before voting begins.
Transcript
Hovik Manucharyan: 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.