In any so-called Western democracy, a sitting leader running for re-election who behaved as Nikol Pashinyan has behaved over the past several days would be facing immediate calls to resign, withdraw from the campaign, or answer serious questions about his fitness to govern.
Yet in Armenia, Pashinyan’s outbursts are being treated by his Western patrons as if they are merely unfortunate campaign moments. They are not. They are evidence of a deeper political and psychological imbalance that has become increasingly apparent.
Armenia is not witnessing normal campaign rhetoric. It is witnessing the conduct of a sitting prime minister who appears unable to distinguish between political opposition, civic protest, public grief and personal enemies. He has berated citizens, insulted Artsakh refugees, lashed out at grieving Armenians and threatened political rivals from the campaign stage. This is not leadership. It is public unraveling.
This unraveling is taking place at the precise moment when Pashinyan’s hold on power is no longer guaranteed. As Oragark recently reported, polling data now shows a realistic path for Pashinyan’s removal through the ballot box. Civil Contract is polling at only 26 to 27 percent, while several opposition forces, taken together, are positioned to surpass the ruling party in parliament. Once parties below the threshold are excluded from seat allocation, Oragark noted that Civil Contract’s support could translate to roughly 47 percent of parliament, compared with approximately 53 to 55 percent for the combined opposition. For the first time since 2018, the numbers no longer point to Pashinyan’s inevitability. They point to his possible ouster.
That is the context in which his recent behavior must be understood. This is not the confidence of a democratic leader asking voters for another mandate. It looks like panic from a man who sees power slipping away.
The case of the displaced Artsakh woman was especially revealing. This was not an enemy of the state. This was a refugee carrying the pain of a lost homeland. Pashinyan’s anger toward her exposed the moral bankruptcy of a political project that demands Armenians forget Artsakh, accept humiliation and applaud surrender as “peace.”
Then came the incident involving Artur Osipyan, an Artsakh political figure who confronted Pashinyan during a Civil Contract campaign event in Yerevan. Osipyan reportedly questioned Pashinyan about Artsakh, after which Pashinyan lost his temper and used degrading language against him. Osipyan was later detained on suspicion of hooliganism.
This pattern is unmistakable. Pashinyan is not behaving like a national leader seeking reconciliation. He is behaving like a man consumed by resentment, unable to tolerate reminders of the national catastrophe that occurred under his rule. His anger is not directed only at political opponents. It is directed at the wounded, the displaced and those who refuse to let Artsakh be erased from Armenian memory.
One of the more suspicious episodes involved a video of armed masked men allegedly threatening Pashinyan. Threats of violence must always be condemned. But Armenians are also right to question the timing, origin and political usefulness of such a video. Many have speculated that it may have been staged political theater, possibly by forces tied to Pashinyan’s own camp or by hostile outside interests seeking to manipulate Armenia’s internal atmosphere. At minimum, it should not be accepted at face value as proof of a real terrorist threat without serious scrutiny.
Even more dangerous is Pashinyan’s use of state power as campaign rhetoric. When a sitting prime minister speaks from a rally stage about treason charges, nationalization of businesses connected to political rivals and criminal accusations against opposition figures, the line between government authority and political revenge disappears. This is precisely the kind of behavior Western institutions usually describe as authoritarian when it comes from leaders they oppose.
But because Pashinyan is useful to them, the standards change.
Just weeks ago, Europe’s leaders were in Yerevan in what was unmistakably a political gift to Pashinyan on the eve of Armenia’s elections. The European Political Community summit and the first EU-Armenia summit brought senior European figures to Armenia at a politically decisive moment. This was not neutral diplomacy. It was a show of international legitimacy for Pashinyan’s campaign.
French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit made the message even clearer. Europe’s leaders did not simply visit Armenia. They appeared in Yerevan at a moment when Pashinyan’s polling position was weakening and effectively helped stage-manage an image of Western endorsement.
Now that the same leader is publicly berating citizens, threatening rivals and displaying alarming instability on the campaign trail, those same Western voices are suddenly silent.
The hypocrisy is breathtaking. If a leader aligned with Moscow behaved this way, Western capitals would already be issuing statements about democratic backsliding, abuse of power, threats to free elections and the misuse of state institutions. But when the offending leader is Pashinyan, the man they have chosen as their “democratic” vehicle in Armenia, the rules are suspended.
It is equally remarkable that major mainstream international media outlets have largely ignored this meltdown. Armenia is in the middle of a high-stakes election. The prime minister is publicly unraveling. Citizens are being shouted down. Opposition figures are being threatened. State power is being brandished like a personal weapon. Polls show a plausible path for the ruling party’s defeat. Yet much of the international coverage still reduces the election to a convenient formula: West versus Russia, reform versus reaction, peace versus war.
That narrative is not journalism. It is geopolitical packaging.
The real question is not whether Armenia should have relations with Europe, Russia, the United States, Iran or anyone else. The real question is whether Armenia is still allowed to be a state governed by law, dignity and national responsibility, or whether Armenians are expected to tolerate any abuse so long as the person committing it is labeled “pro-Western.”
Pashinyan’s defenders will say he is under pressure. Of course he is. Every national leader faces pressure. But pressure does not create character. It reveals it. The last several days have revealed a leader who cannot face the victims of his own failures, cannot tolerate dissent and increasingly treats political opposition as a threat to be crushed rather than a voice to be answered.
Armenia deserves better than a prime minister who yells at the wounded and threatens the opposition. It deserves better than a political culture in which grief over Artsakh is treated as extremism and dissent is treated as treason. It deserves better than Western governments that preach democracy while excusing authoritarian behavior from a leader who serves their interests.
The West’s silence is not neutrality. It is complicity by omission.
Pashinyan’s latest conduct is not merely embarrassing. It is a warning. A leader who displays this level of instability, rage and vindictiveness on the campaign trail cannot be trusted with the powers of the state. A government that confuses criticism with treason cannot be trusted with democracy. A political movement that claims to defend freedom while threatening citizens and rivals has already begun to hollow democracy out from within.
