Democracy Watch

By Tigran Grigoryan #DemocracyWatch – The year preceding Armenia’s parliamentary elections was marked by a sharp deterioration in democratic standards. The ruling party, leveraging the state institutions under its control, targeted various opponents, instrumentalized law enforcement and the judiciary to serve narrow political agendas, and increasingly relied on selective justice. Throughout this period, through the […]

By Tigran Grigoryan and Hayk Khanumyan On May 14, during a meeting in one of Yerevan’s districts, former president and leader of the Armenia Alliance, Robert Kocharyan, criticized Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s “attacks against national identity and the Church” and insulted the ruling party leader, saying: “Now tell me, you hambal (a derogatory Armenian term […]

#DemocracyWatch — On March 25, 2026, the National Assembly elected Vladimir Vardanyan as a judge of the Constitutional Court. Only members of the ruling “Civil Contract” faction participated in the vote. Vardanyan’s election sparked serious criticism in Armenia, as just days before being elected to the Constitutional Court, he was a member of the ruling party and […]

By Tigran Grigoryan #DemocracyWatch – In July 2025, when our think tank—the Regional Center for Democracy and Security—published a report on hate speech targeting refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh, we identified several important patterns related to this phenomenon. The first was that the volume of hate speech against refugees increases during periods of domestic political tension. In […]

By Tigran Grigoryan On March 11, Edita Gzoyan, Director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute (AGMI), submitted her resignation and was dismissed from her position. Media reports about the possible reasons for her resignation appeared immediately and were confirmed two days later by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan himself. During a briefing on March 13, Pashinyan confirmed […]

By Tigran Grigoryan #DemocracyWatch – Three months remain before Armenia’s parliamentary elections, and discussions in the country are increasingly dominated by the topic of Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI). Practically all efforts by Armenia’s international partners are now focused on assisting the country in countering hybrid threats stemming from external actors, predominantly Russia. Nearly […]