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By Michael Knezevic
Over the last six months, Armenia has been beset by a flare-up in its ‘frozen conflict’ with Azerbaijan, near-daily protests in the capital Yerevan, a foiled assassination plot and an attempted coup. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Armenia and Azerbaijan have been at war over the mountainous Nagorno-Karabakh enclave which both sides consider to be the cradle of their civilisations. September 2020 saw the worst outbreak of violence since 1994, with approximately 7,500 deaths reported before a new Russia-brokered ceasefire took effect on 9 November.
In Armenia, the deal has led to a rift between pragmatists who feel Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s ceasefire was necessary to stem Azerbaijan’s encroaching territorial gains, and the opposition, who view the deal as a treasonous capitulation. With nationalist sentiment at an all-time high, can Pashinyan’s administration withstand political unrest and pursue the reform agenda which brought it to power in 2018?
Armenia’s Political Context
Armenia’s recent factionalisation could jeopardise its prospects for long-term stability. Although the government’s stated aim is to construct a Western-style parliamentary democracy, elections and referenda between 1995 and 2018 have been characterised by assassinations, mass protests and alleged electoral fraud. The current Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan came to power during the 2018 “Velvet Revolution”, when 200,000 people – one-fifth of Armenia’s population – peacefully took to the streets over distrust in the government and low confidence in the judiciary system.
Pashinyan’s government, the My Step Alliance, capitalised on growing disillusionment with the Republican Party’s monopoly on power, pervasive corruption and the political elite’s affiliations with oligarchs. Despite some progress in tackling corruption and dismantling political monopolies, he has nonetheless drawn criticism for appointing judicial figures with substantial ties to the former regime and failed to deliver any meaningful reform in the judiciary system despite a protracted conflict between the country’s government and Constitutional Court. A recently assembled commission could see the Constitutional Court replaced by a US-style Supreme Court as early as 2023.
Crucially, the My Step Alliance’s platform of democratic reform depended on the preservation of the status quo in Nagorno-Karabakh – a historical powder keg for regional conflict.
The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict
The frozen conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which has defined the Caucasus region since an initial 1994 ceasefire, is now older than many of its combatants. Nonetheless, the two sides maintain the same fervour when it comes to military action. In July 2020, Azeri protestors demanded an offensive against Armenia while Yerevan proclaimed the war to be a “clash of civilisations”.
Both countries declared martial law and mobilised their militaries by the end of September. On 8 October, Armenia curtailed media freedom and freedom of expression by introducing fines and jail sentences for vocal critics of the state’s actions during the conflict. Both Yerevan and Baku may well have sought to fuel nationalist sentiment to distract from Covid-19-induced economic woes.
Fears of accidental or intentional damage to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline – which accounts for 1% of the world’s oil supply – and concerns over possible war crimes related to the targeting of civilians and use of illegal cluster munitions attracted international condemnation. The six weeks of fighting were punctuated by four internationally brokered ceasefires, all of which were violated within hours or minutes of being signed. Regional escalation posed a significant risk as Turkey vociferously supported Baku and Yerevan awaited Russian intervention in line with a collective defence pact. Ankara-backed Baku made considerable territorial gains as Moscow opted for ostensive impartiality, facilitated by the fact that its defence pact covers Armenia proper but does not extend to conflict in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh territories.
On 9 November, Moscow brokered a ceasefire which saw Armenia withdraw from seven Azeri territories, including the symbolically significant city of Shusha, that it had occupied since 1994. Russia would also deploy 2,500 peacekeepers to ensure peace over a five-year period. The absence of a long-term solution and the lifting of media restrictions in early December contributed to mass criticism of Pashinyan and the peace deal. Martial law, on the other hand, remained in place to quell ensuing political unrest until parliament finally voted to remove it at the end of March 2021.
The Armenian Aftermath
The day after the ceasefire was announced, rioters broke into parliament buildings in Yerevan, attacking and hospitalising the parliamentary speaker. Several days later on the 14th November, the National Security Service (NSS) claimed to have foiled a plot to assassinate Pashinyan, arresting several opposition figures for planning an illegal usurpation of power. Several cabinet members, including the defence minister and foreign minister, resigned amid the chaos of 17 opposition parties forming a coalition to try and oust the prime minister.
Protests gathered momentum in 2021 as security services continued to detain protestors and, in early February, Pashinyan reneged on an earlier promise to hold snap elections. The unrest reached its peak when 20,000 citizens took to the streets on 5th December, with activism a near-daily feature of life in post-conflict Yerevan. Pashinyan ignored an 8th December deadline for his resignation, despite the President, the last three prime ministers and church leaders calling for him to step down. Regardless, the Prime Minister still maintained a majority backing from the My Step Alliance, while the opposition coalition failed to find a figurehead to rally behind.
Pashinyan’s supporters have recently staged counter-demonstrations, arguing that the failure to modernise Armenia’s army was a shortcoming of previous administrations rather than the My Step Alliance, as Pashinyan’s critics suggest. In contrast, Azerbaijan’s defence and national security expenditure in 2019 was a record high US$14.8 billion – 13.4% of the state’s budget. Its Turkish drone technology and Israeli anti-tank weaponry ultimately overwhelmed Armenia’s outdated defensive capabilities.
On 24th February, 40 high-ranking military officials including the head of the General Staff Onik Gasparyan submitted a letter that demanded Pashinyan’s resignation. The Prime Minister decried the move as an “attempted coup” and moved to dismiss Gasparyan – a decision which the President declined to verify twice in the two-week window before his automatic dismissal. A court has since allowed him to hold office until a decision is reached, in the face of a former president’s calls for security services and police to join the army’s dissent.
On 18th March, Pashinyan finally reached an agreement with opposition parties Bright Armenia and Prosperous Armenia to hold snap parliamentary elections on the 20th June. The following week, Pashinyan announced that he would resign in April to facilitate the elections. He will, however, stay on in the capacity of interim prime minister to prevent the opposition from installing their own candidate.
Other self-preservation manoeuvres have included democratic reform and support from Russia, through electoral changes to a party list system (rather than individual candidates) and the announcement of arms purchases from Moscow on the 1st and 6th April, respectively. Pashinyan met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the 7th April, hoping to shore up support ahead of the snap elections. The outcome of which is increasingly likely to favour Pashinyan, as opposition disunity persists.
What Next?
Beyond the new ill-defined border, in contrast, the Azeri regime is enjoying widespread support. Agreements on increased investment with Turkey in February and threatening military exercises on the Armenian border in March demonstrate Baku’s appetite for further territorial gains and the nationalist euphoria which accompanies them.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused the OSCE Minsk Group, which is tasked with mediating the conflict, of siding with Armenia. Turkey has increasingly been alienated by the West over its inflammatory support for Baku, purchases of Russian armaments and maritime resource disputes with Greece in the Eastern Mediterranean. Its decreasing accountability to NATO will allow it to act in a bolder and more aggressive capacity when the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict next thaws out.
Russia, on the other hand, is likely to continue its reticent attitude towards intervention. Across the former Soviet Union, the tenured leaders of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan are facing growing unrest. The Kremlin hopes that the region’s recent wave of political upheaval will not be defined by a renouncement of Russian influence. Moscow is hesitant to side with Yerevan as it considers Baku a strategic ally and a model of how former Soviet states can simultaneously enjoy independence and amicable relations with Moscow. If Armenia proper is attacked, however, Moscow’s hand will be forced by the collective defence pact. Until then, it will keep a cautious distance from Pashinyan – a leader who himself came to power through popular protest in 2018.
Domestically, the Prime Minister’s assertion that “there will not be a coup” echoes the not-so-distant Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko, who made the exact same claim following his fraudulent re-election on the 9th August. Lukashenko has weathered near-daily protests and political deadlock ever since. Pashinyan, however, lacks two of the fundamental pillars which have allowed Lukashenko’s regime to survive. Not only has he not been the recipient of Moscow’s financial backing, but he also lacks the stalwart support of the country’s security services.
If unrest persists, future opposition platforms will increasingly be defined by their desire to overturn parts of the unstable ceasefire. Such nationalistic platforms could trigger violent escalation with Baku, particularly as the deal lacks provisions for the aftermath of the Russian peacekeeping forces’ withdrawal in five years’ time. Although the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has been abated, continued efforts to identify and implement a lasting solution should remain a task both domestically and among foreign mediators such as the delegated OSCE Minsk Group. If neglected, the frozen conflict could exacerbate the trends towards nationalism and further entrench polarisation in the Caucasus.
Whereas success at the polls could provide Pashinyan with a mandate to rebuild, a political loss could see a more fragile government export instability to the region through another flare-up in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
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