1in.am The political conflict between the Prime Minister of Armenia and Samvel Karapetyan has now moved to court. Samvel Karapetyan is demanding three million drams and a public apology from Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan during a live broadcast on the Prime Minister's Facebook page. Pashinyan, for his part, has two lawsuits against Karapetyan, demanding a total of 12 million drams. The subjects of the dispute also correspond to the political language of modern Armenia— a house in Canada, hallucinogenic mushrooms, and mutual insults.
At first glance, this is a farcical side note of political life. In reality, it is a rather serious story about the state.
One of the great achievements of democracy is that power and wealth resolve disputes in court, not through force. Europe has spent centuries building a system where the king and the wealthy, the ruler and his opponent finally meet before the same judge. In that sense, the fact that the Prime Minister of Armenia and one of the country's richest businessmen are filing lawsuits against each other is not bad news in itself.
However, the issue is not the dispute that has reached the court, but the quality of public policy that has ultimately brought that dispute to court. When the vocabulary of the public debate between the Prime Minister and the billionaire revolves around mushrooms, "degree of decay," and personal insults, the court is dealing not so much with a political dispute as with the consequences of political culture. Especially for those in power.
The Prime Minister's words are not an ordinary citizen's Facebook post. The words of the head of state carry institutional weight. They are heard by the state system, investors, diplomats, and foreign capitals. When the language of the top official of the government descends to the level of personal insult, the authority of the state is inadvertently drawn into that dispute.
But the same standard should also apply to the billionaire. Wealth is not political immunity. If public claims are made about the Prime Minister regarding a house in Canada or the use of hallucinogenic substances, the author of those claims must also be prepared to prove what they said in court. The advantage of democracy is precisely that neither the position of the Prime Minister nor the wealth of the billionaire should replace evidence.
The political subtext of this story, however, is greater. Samvel Karapetyan is no longer just a businessman today. The political opposition formed around him, the ecclesiastical crisis, and the open conflict with the government have made him a participant in a broader political resistance. Therefore, every personal exchange of fire between the Prime Minister and Karapetyan immediately becomes a story about the relationship between state power and politicized big capital.
In a democratic state, the government cannot decide which businessman has the right to engage in politics, but the businessman cannot turn his economic power into privileged political power over the state. Money should not fear power, and power should not fear money—both should fear the law.
That is precisely why these trials are much more important than three or twelve million drams. If the court can determine without political pressure where there has been fact, where there has been defamation, and where there has been insult, and apply the same standard to both the Prime Minister and his influential opponent, Armenia will achieve a small but significant institutional victory.
However, if the judicial process is perceived as a continuation of the political conflict by other means, the first casualty will be public trust in the court. Karapetyan may receive his three million. Pashinyan his twelve. Both can force the other to deny something or apologize, but Armenia's politics needs something more valuable—a return of language to the boundaries of accountability.
Small states especially cannot afford to turn politics into an endless personal war. Armenia is trying to rebuild its security system, attract foreign capital, open new markets, and reduce geopolitical dependencies. The political elite of that state cannot occupy the public space with a debate about mushrooms.
The court may decide who should apologize to whom, but the judgment of politics is already clear: when the most powerful people in the country choose insults over arguments to communicate with each other, three million drams is the least of the losses. The greatest loss is the devaluation of public discourse.
* This text was automatically translated by Artificial Intelligence (AI).
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