What is more important is not who Pashinyan dismissed, but who stayed and why — Tigran Kocharyan

At the request of Nikol Pashinyan, yesterday, November 18, six high-ranking officials submitted their resignations. These are Interior Minister Vahe Ghazaryan, Chair of the Investigative Committee Argishti Karamyan, Chair of the Anti-Corruption Committee Sasun Khachatryan, Minister of Finance Gnel Sanosyan, Chair of the State Revenue Committee Rustam Badasyan, and Chair of the Supreme Judicial Council Karen Andreasyan.

We talked about the reasons for the dismissals live on Alpha News with media expert and Alpha News editor-in-chief Tigran Kocharyan.

“This is actually the same thing that Zelensky did 2 or 3 months ago in Ukraine. Just to ease the discontent and distract the focus a little, he fired the ministers but then appointed them to new, rather good positions. It is the same here now. But here you need to understand not who was fired but who stayed and why. Armen Abazyan, Armen Grigoryan, Anna Vardapetyan, Andranik Kocharyan, and Suren Papikyan are those who remained. That is, those are either Pashinyan’s inner circle or Pashinyan cannot deal with them the way he wants to,” Tigran Kocharyan noted.

Speaking about Pashinyan’s next steps, he stressed that some members of the Civil Contract Party are expected to be arrested in the coming months.

“None of these 6 officials dismissed by Nikol Pashinyan participated in Nikol Pashinyan’s marches, but it is very likely that at least 3-4 of them will find a place in the state administration again, because, for example, what did Vahe Ghazaryan do wrong for Pashinyan to leave him without a position? This is a next step to ease the tension among the people.

It should also be noted that this is a politically understandable step, since first you must unite against a common and external enemy, which were the former authorities and Russia. But the topic of the former authorities has remained in the past, since there has not been a single former official in office for 7 years, and Russia has already been blamed for everything that can be done. Now it’s time to find the enemies inside. The next step after that will be the arrest of some members of the Civil Contract Party. Then there will be elections in 2026, he can assemble a new team and show the people that he can do whatever he wants; he can fire or appoint whoever he wants,” Tigran Kocharyan concluded.