‘Parade of resignations’: Is Armenia preparing for the election or turmoil?

The internal political life in Armenia continues to surprise. To begin with, last week Nikol Pashinyan shaved off his beard for the first time since 2018, when he came to power after a series of street protests.

Pashinyan did not explain why he decided to shave right now, at the end of 2024. Moreover, the beard was in a sense a symbol of the change of power in Armenia in 2018. Pashinyan did not shave it off during the COVID period, when he had a trilateral meeting with the heads of Russia and Azerbaijan in Moscow. It should also be noted that many of Pashinyan’s associates grew beards after the events of 2018 (Hovik Aghazaryan, Andranik Kocharyan, Karen Andreasyan).

On November 15, at a government meeting, Pashinyan criticized the security forces, saying that from now on, law enforcement agencies must solve the tasks themselves within the framework of his concepts.
On the morning of November 18, Pashinyan announced that he “asked a number of high-ranking officials to leave their posts,” explaining that the reasons for this demand were not personal but systemic, which he spoke about publicly.

On Monday, Minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure Gnel Sanosyan, Interior Minister Vahe Ghazaryan, Chair of the Investigative Committee Argishti Karamyan, Head of the Anti-Corruption Committee Sasun Khachatryan, Chair of the Supreme Judicial Council Karen Andreasyan and Head of the State Revenue Committee Rustam Badasyan submitted their resignations.

There can be many reasons for what happened, from the desire to change your team while causing a big media frenzy to a simple desire to do something because “this is something that can be done.” However, there is another version regarding the ongoing events.

In 2018, Pashinyan came to power to implement a specific political project, the dissolution of Artsakh. The absence of Artsakh opens up an opportunity not only to withdraw Armenia from the orbit of Russian influence but also nullifies the factor that in many ways forced Baku to pursue a balanced policy without falling under the full control of one of the geopolitical centers, as well as not to enter into outright conflict with one or another actor (of course, first of all, with Moscow and Tehran). The absence of Artsakh should significantly weaken Moscow’s influence on Baku.

COP29 has become the Rubicon, crossing which we can say that the takeover of Artsakh has been “legitimized” in the international arena, which means that the political project of 2018 has been completed. Accordingly, a new project is needed, the core of which should be Armenia, since Moscow’s influence on Azerbaijan will be weakened to an even greater extent if the factor of Armenian statehood as a whole is neutralized, simply put, if Armenia ceases to exist as a state and Armenians leave the region.

This new project also has certain “external signs”: having exhausted the image of the national hero of Armenia, Monte Melkonyan, used during the “velvet revolution” (bandage on his arm, camouflage, etc.), Pashinyan began to create the concept of a “young ruler of a young state”. Perhaps that’s why he shaved off his beard. The new political project is essentially the country’s conversion to anti-Armenia (that is, an attempt to build a construct based on the denial of Armenian identity, the denial of even basic documents for Armenia, such as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, etc.).

Pashinyan has set himself a task to become the face of a new political project, the result of which will be a document on the dissolution of Armenia. It is no coincidence that, in parallel with the turmoil inside Armenia, Azerbaijan announced an increase in military spending and the beginning of a new stage of talks with Yerevan in December.

Even pro-Western experts are saying today that the demilitarization of Armenia will be Ilham Aliyev’s new demand in December. And there is less than a step from demilitarization to dissolution.

Think about it…