The effectiveness of the opposition should be measured by its ability to change the government’s behavior, according to former Justice Minister Arpine Hovhannisyan.
In her assessment, Armenia’s political culture consistently pushes discussions of structural problems into the background. Public and political debate focuses mainly on immediate developments, while serious analysis of their underlying causes is largely absent.
Political Sectarianism Dominates Armenia’s Public Debate
Hovhannisyan argues that Armenia’s political environment tends to criticize not incorrect ideas, but independent thinking itself.
According to her, group mentality dominates, and every opinion is automatically associated with one political camp or another.
“If you criticize the opposition, you are declared a hidden supporter of the government. If you criticize the government, representatives of the ruling camp label you in the same way. The result is political sectarianism, where everything is presented in black-and-white terms, although reality is not like that. Reality is more often gray because political discourse is built around clichés,” Hovhannisyan says.
She believes that if Armenia wants a more effective political system, it must abandon this mentality and return to genuine political debate.
Neither the Government nor the Opposition Follows a Consistent Political Logic
According to Hovhannisyan, both the government and the opposition currently demonstrate political inconsistency.
“According to the government’s position, opposition votes were obtained through vote-buying and election violations. According to the opposition, the current government itself is illegitimate because the parliamentary elections were held with the use of administrative resources, pressure on voters and an environment that created a chilling effect — an atmosphere of fear and self-censorship among opposition voters,” she said.
Hovhannisyan notes that the use of administrative resources was documented not only in opposition statements but also in reports by election observation missions and in the Constitutional Court’s decision.
Despite making these claims, both the government and the opposition have agreed to accept parliamentary mandates and work in a legislature whose legitimacy they themselves describe as questionable.
Accepting Mandates Is Only the Most Superficial Issue
Hovhannisyan believes the debate over whether to accept parliamentary mandates represents only the surface layer of the political problem. The deeper issue is the absence of consistent political logic.
If the opposition genuinely believes the elections were illegitimate — particularly given the situation surrounding the Prosperous Armenia Party, the decisions of the Central Electoral Commission and the Constitutional Court’s refusal to order a recount — then entering parliament effectively legitimizes the process it claims to oppose.
At the same time, she continues, if the government argues that even one opposition mandate resulted from vote-buying, then the legitimacy question extends to the entire parliament.
She recalls that political parties aligned with the current government — For the Republic and Democracy, Law and Discipline — also cited allegations of vote-buying in their submissions to the Constitutional Court.
The Constitutional Court Had the Necessary Legal Powers
Hovhannisyan also addressed the powers of the Constitutional Court, referring to Article 77 of the Law on the Constitutional Court.
Under that provision, if the Court concludes that election violations were systemic, organized, widespread and recurring, it may invalidate the election results even after all available opportunities to obtain further evidence have been exhausted.
According to her, if the authorities were genuinely convinced that widespread vote-buying had taken place, they could have used this legal mechanism.
The Romanian Precedent
Hovhannisyan cites Romania as an example.
According to her, following the first round of the presidential election, candidates appealed to the Constitutional Court and demanded that the results be annulled.
The Court initially adopted a cautious approach, but the situation changed after the country’s president declassified intelligence service reports and submitted them to the Court.
Based on those materials, the Constitutional Court eventually invalidated the results of the first round.
Hovhannisyan argues that if Armenia’s authorities truly intended to combat vote-buying, they could have taken a similar approach and submitted all relevant materials to the Constitutional Court.
She also notes that allegations of vote-buying have repeatedly been raised during the past five years, yet there is still not a single court ruling convicting anyone of the offense.
The Georgian Example
Turning to the opposition, Hovhannisyan says the appropriate response to the situation would have been to refuse the parliamentary mandates.
In her view, when the opposition uses only the language of victory during the election campaign but later reveals that its “Plan B” is to accept the mandates, many opposition voters find that difficult to understand.
Hovhannisyan recalls the experience of Georgia. Although the Georgian opposition did not remove the government by refusing its mandates, it did force the authorities to make political concessions.
The United States and the European Union were involved in the process and conducted mediation efforts between the government and opposition for several months. As a result, the opposition secured specific political concessions.
At the same time, Hovhannisyan stresses that rejecting mandates cannot be an end in itself.
“If you refuse a mandate, that decision must be supported by public consolidation, international partners, a clear political agenda and the ability to build pressure on the government,” she concludes.