Insights with Eric Hacopian, a political analyst, look at the main events of the week in and around Armenia.

 

Welcome to this week's episode of Insight. During this week's show, we're going to cover three topics. The first one is going to be Ilham Aliyev's latest aggressions against Armenia in Syunik. Then we're going to move on to the likelihood that we might have parliamentary elections this year. And lastly, we're going to close the show with discussing the new domestic violence legislation, the anti-domestic violence legislation that's been proposed in the Armenian parliament.

 

The aggression that took place this week, a few days ago, at the village of Nerkin Hand, led to the murder of four Armenian soldiers by Aliyev's gunmen. Actually, if you look at it, there's a background with this. As in the past, all aggressions are set up by a series of actions. The first one was that they called in the EU ambassador in Baku to the foreign ministry to complain about the work of the EU mission on the Armenian-Azeri border. This was immediately followed by the attack. This attack specifically took place at an area in which there are Russian soldiers and the Russian soldiers all over Syunik, who actually prevented the EU mission from actually going to this location. 

 

Furthermore, this was preceded by, again, false reports of shooting at the border from the Armenian side, which are obviously not the case. And interestingly enough, this comes 10 days after this country actually handed over landmine maps to the regime in Baku, in quotes, as a gesture of good will.

 

What can we say when analyzing this? I think, first and foremost, this is a continuation of the concession to aggression pipeline that we have seen since November of 2020. And frankly, we should expect nothing different from the regime in Baku until the regime there fears our ill-will gestures.

 

Now we're going to move on to the second topic of the week, which is the possibility of Armenia holding parliamentary elections this year, snap parliamentary elections. And there's sort of a backdrop to this. Last week, Hayk Marutyan, who is one of the leaders of the opposition in the Armenian city council and former mayor, was thrown out of the city council for a lack of attendance. I frankly never support such expulsions, but I also don't understand the idea of winning a seat and then boycotting the seat that you're supposed to serve in. We've seen this in the parliament and it makes very little sense to me. But frankly, all of this is a background to the chances of what's leading to us possibly having parliamentary elections by the end of this year. You see the signs everywhere, the foremost being if you look at the Prime Minister and his actions, he's sort of in a campaign mode. You see him going around the country, visiting construction sites, complaining about this, berating local officials about the poor quality of work, firing local governors. And on a more amusing note, whenever you see the Prime Minister is wearing that silly worker's hat where, you know, it's a worker's hat dash linen cap, you don't know what it is.

 

Even on foreign trips, when he gets into this populist mode, you know that we're going to have elections. Going back to Mr. Hayk Marutyan, immediately after his expulsion, what he said is that he intends to run for Prime Minister when there are parliamentary elections.

 

The reality is that Mr. Marutyan actually underperformed in the mayoral race, mostly because he frankly didn't even campaign. He was a very popular former mayor, and in initial polling he was actually in first place, but running against the rather weak candidate from the other side, he massively underperformed. However, if he actually puts his mind to it and runs an aggressive campaign, he actually has a base of popular support, especially in Yerevan, and he's been known nationally because of his work in the entertainment industry where if he actually puts his mind to it, he can actually be a very serious candidate in challenging this government during the next elections. 

 

Now let's look at what the political calculations would be. Why would the prime minister call elections essentially two years, a year and a half before they're due, which in the next elections are actually technically supposed to happen in 2026? First of all, because every year that goes by is less popular than the previous year.

 

The opposition, which at this point is the majority of the country, is still divided and not coalesced into organized political forces that can really challenge him. Third, the economy is doing very strongly. In fact, over the past five years, economic national income on a per capita basis has actually doubled.

 

So, economically, with all of these problems going on, you actually have a positive narrative to tell. And I also think he actually wants to lose the absolute majority that he enjoys right now, and he wants to be the lead in a coalition government in which he is not entirely responsible for everything, that he actually shares this responsibility with other political actors, as long as he's the lead. I don't think he cares about that. And I think this will be a way, next elections are far more likely to marginalize the current opposition even further by bringing in other people into the parliament. So essentially the Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan, the ARF party groups are likely to get less as other people are likely to get in.

 

And at the same time, I think what he wants is to have opposition in the parliament that is more anti-Russian than he is, because it makes him sound far more reasonable in all of his foreign policy relations with the Russian state. 

 

In conclusion on this matter, first and foremost, there's no guarantee that any of these will actually work as far as what the Prime Minister's goals are. Politics is always full of X-factors, and in a place like Armenia, a lot of those X-factors are actually controlled by foreign powers, whether in Baku, Moscow, or other places.

 

Secondly, these will be the first elections in Armenia since the ethnic cleansing and genocide in Artsakh. So far, most of the blame has gone on the Russian state and the fact that they allowed the ethnic cleansing and the genocide to happen.

 

However, the Russians are not going to be on the ballot. It's the Prime Minister who's going to be on the ballot, and he is going to be the party that's going to be held responsible for the events and the atrocities of last September. 

 

And lastly, I think what this might bring about is, we saw this in the mayoral elections, in which you get a protest vote for very marginal figures that can actually bring in forces into our political system that are far more unhinged than anybody that we have right now.

 

Now we're going to move on to the third and final topic of the week, which is legislation that was introduced in the Armenian Parliament last week to fight domestic violence. Last Wednesday, the Armenian Parliament, by a vote of 63-32-1 abstention, voted to approve a legislation that was written by MP Zaruhi Batoyan, who's a member of the civil contract dominant party that runs the country.

 

The author of the bill told the parliament that her legislation seeks to increase the effectiveness and the protection of domestic violence laws in Armenia and to prevent domestic violence. This bill further goes on to actually ban virginity testing and actually defines it as a form of violence. Yes, believe it or not, that still goes on.

 

The law is aiming to protect children and define time frames for that protection and set free health care for victims of domestic violence and other regulations. A leading MP for the opposition, Armine Kyureghyan disapproved of the virginity testing ban. She said that this is a strong cultural problem, i.e. there's a lot of cultural support for virginity testing. 

 

Actually, Ms. Kyureghyan, virginity testing is not a cultural, it's not a strong cultural problem, it's actually a strong stupidity problem.

 

The author of the legislation, Zaruhi Batoyan, actually responded to her saying that this bill is actually about family values and not against it, and I'm quoting her. She said, we must treat domestic violence differently. This isn't a usual type of violence.

 

It's no coincidence that the new law defines the circle of people considered as “family members” she said, highlighting the need for additional regulations. In analyzing this, what is it that we can say? First and foremost, anybody with any sense of common sense would actually support this legislation. The sad fact is that one of the most unsafe places for Armenian women, for far too many Armenian women in this country, is actually in their own home.

 

And as far as virginity testing goes, well, it should be banned because it is an absolute disgrace, unless you can have one for boys. And last I checked, you can't do that. So if you can't have one for boys, we have no right to humiliate any woman through that humiliating process.

 

In conclusion, I'm all for family values and the preservation of our cultural traditions. We have many traditions and cultural values that are very much worth protecting. For example, the respect that we have for our elderly, and the fact that we have a society that can offer freedom without alienation, while allowing us room for both solitude and solidarity.

 

But at the same time, I have absolutely no patience for anyone who hides behind the banner of family values to defend abusing women. And neither should you.

 

 

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