The final results of the pseudo-elections of June 7, 2026 have been announced. Everyone may now answer the question for themselves whether the wait of the last months and weeks and the time spent on hysterical debates were worth it – in the end of the day, all we have is a redistribution of seats among the current government’s accomplices and yet another confirmation of Robert Kocharyan’s political death.
So, what could an unaware observer, contrary to our warnings, have expected from these ‘elections’? The overthrow of the Turkish collaborationist Pashinyan by his relatively recent collaborationist Samvel Karapetyan? So that Samvel Karapetyan continues to turn Armenia into a geopolitical thoroughfare, but ‘in his own way’? Or unification of the ‘opposition’ against the Turkish threat? As we could see, even hollow blackmail with the fake ‘Russian threat’ did not achieve such goals. Perhaps, anyone expected authorities to abandon unrestrained deployment of administrative apparatus or turn a blind eye to its use by the ‘opposition’?
Ever more frequently, the reality is catching up with our dire warnings issued long ago, although we would have obviously preferred to have been proven wrong. Yet another electoral spectacle has confirmed that there are no substantive differences among those taking part in it. All of them, without exception, are part of an entrenched feudal clan system that thrives in the colonised geographic Armenia. By definition, neither a nation, nor national interest, nor a meaningful agenda can be born in a colony run by satraps. Therefore, the ‘opposing’ forces only argued over a single non-existing fictitious choice: the one between a Turkish vilayet and a Russian gubernia, forcing people to make up their mind on the ‘least evil’ – as if it was not from the hands of the Russian tsar that we were so casually passed into the hands of the Turkish sultan.
The ‘opposition’ could not but know that by appealing to the made-up anti-Russian nature of the Turkish satrap, it only echoed the satrap’s own deceiving propaganda about ‘getting rid’ of Russian influence.
While the performance was in full swing, was it really so hard to at least ask the Turkish satrap: what kind of leftover state is being built and sanctified that is supposedly worthier than our Homeland? A hedonistic one obsessed with consumption and creation of a primitive materialist class? They didn’t ask because this mission had been equally expertly handled by his predecessors, including the current ‘oppositionists’? Maybe there is no point in blaming the voter for lack of patriotism, if the leaders of the ‘opposition’ forces have nothing to object to the mediocre propaganda of the Turkish collaborationist?
It is not surprising that Pashinyan’s ‘French’ image outperforms the ‘Russian-Belarusian’ image of his pretending opponents, especially when the latter are happy to make the Turkish satrap look more French than the French themselves. Apparently, the newly self-proclaimed ‘saviours’ do not have enough knowledge of world history to expose the glaring inconsistency of such comparisons. The key to France’s continued influence is not abandonment of national values, but, on the contrary, elevation of own history, heritage, and language into non-negotiable pillars of national identity. For all their secularism, modernity, and inclusivity, the French would never trade the victories and defeats of Napoleon for cheap fuel. In ‘Real Armenia’, the feudal lords exchanged Garegin Nzhdeh, Monte Melkonian, and Vazgen Sargsyan for Azerbaijani gasoline and Turkish textile. Admittedly, to understand and appreciate, one needs to be a bearer of these values. The ‘opposition’ is as far from anything national as Pashinyan is anti-national.
The most troubling part is not that naïve voters are being deceived. They are no strangers to deceit. After all, it oozes out of every pore, Russian or European, that it is them who should save Armenia from the ‘greatest’ evil – Europe and Russia, respectively. All of this was happening under the watchful eye of the true co-directors of the spectacle – the Turkish and Azerbaijani duo. Tragically, the ‘opposition’ had not given honest answers to any of the questions above – not even for itself. And now they point the finger at the voter, seeking to blame ordinary people and bear the consequences of their own incompetence and moral bankruptcy. In Nikol Pashinyan’s ‘Real Armenia’, the oligarchy has apparently been defeated so decisively that the votes of the poor miserable oligarchs must be counted under the watchful eye of a mythical ‘civil society’– one that the first President of Armenia (and Nikol Pashinyan’s mentor) Levon Ter-Petrosyan strangled in its cradle and which none of his successors ever bothered to revive.
Yet the true intrigue was not the supremacy of the Turkish satrap, but the parliamentary ascent of the self-proclaimed beacon of Armenian democracy and godsend hope of the Armenian world—the pan-Armenian builder Gagik Tsarukyan. The one that Pashinyan’s government generously allowed to de facto privatise Hatis, one of the most prominent mountains of the Armenian Highlands, and decorate it with a statue of Christ.
What conclusions and lessons can be learned from the pseudo–elections of 2026? Once again, we have a parliament with two ‘opposition’ factions, but this time an unprincipled, amorphous oligarchic ‘party’ is in the second place, whose members may be easily bribed or blackmailed by Pashinyan’s ‘Civil Contract’ to adopt the coveted new Azerbaijani-dictated constitution, especially under the anonymous voting system in the parliament. This need of extra effort can hardly be presented as a triumph – while the ‘opposition’ in the previous parliament ‘opposed’ Pashinyan merely by heroically heckling from the sidelines, he was methodically consolidating his control over the Constitutional Court and, true to the finest traditions of the Third Republic, securing the means to push through a new constitution by referendum, circumventing, if needed, the parliament in the process.
In 2021, Serzh Sargsyan sneaked into the parliament as the third force – without reaching the minimum threshold (his personally-drafted current Constitution requires at least three factions in the parliament). This time around, Robert Kocharyan barely gained the required number of votes. This is an evident manifestation that it is high time for all shades of political corpses to leave the stage and stop sucking up the oxygen and obstructing genuine change. The same applies to Arman Babajanyan and Aram Sargsyan, whose ratings have dropped to near zero: no one needs alternative (supposedly slightly more ‘pro-Western’) Turks, when there is a proven Turk from the authentic assembly line. In a country, where according to polls 66% were against everyone before the start of the campaign, a party called ‘Against All’ barely scored 1%. That is why all kinds of wishful thinking Armenians shall refrain from initiating amateurish pseudo-political projects and embarrassing themselves and everyone else in this Turkish-directed circus.
In the end, as a result of the latest ‘elections’, people are only more demoralised and more disappointed in themselves and in various communities, while the perpetrators have very specific names. It will now be even easier for Pashinyan to stigmatise Russian Armenians, and, with Kocharyan’s team reacting inadequately to Armenians with Turkish surnames, we are not far from Genocide denial and stigmatisation of individual communities in the style of Pashinyan.
Civil servants vs. poor ordinary people, Yerevan Armenians vs. Artsakh Armenians, other Yerevan Armenians vs. Syunik and Tavush Armenians, pro-vilayet voters vs. pro-gubernia voters, some Russian Armenians as outright faceless toys in the hands of a Russian oligarch – these are the results of these ‘elections’ under the Turkish satrap of ‘Real Armenia’, duly legitimised by eighteen pretenders – at their own expense and with the backing of their naïve and gullible sponsors.
Puzzlingly, it did not take long for the ‘patriots’ to conveniently forget that they took part in ‘elections’– and urged others to do the same – in order to avert an immediate catastrophe. As soon as the ‘elections’ were over, the primary goal of these ‘superhuman saviours’ suddenly became not the fight against Turkish colonisation, not prevention of the accelerating erosion of the Armenian statehood, but … gaining a few additional mandates, so that Pashinyan, imagine that, could not appoint prosecutors or judges of the Constitutional Court (which he has long since populated with his appointees) without their consent. Understandably, avoiding one’s own imprisonment is far more engaging than fighting for the country’s future. Otherwise, it might suddenly become apparent that the latter is not in such a dire state, given that the ‘opposition’ is preoccupied with problems typical of everyday rat race in an average Eastern European country.
Suddenly, the artists, who voluntarily legitimised this preordained performance, began to wonder that there are no fair elections in Armenia. And this is coming from people with enormous resources, who know how to successfully circumvent the rules that they once invented and which have excluded the small forces without substantial capital from the political process. Therefore, complaints about technical violations (mostly unfounded, by the way) amount to little more than lip service when they come from forces that could have covered the entire country with observers represented in all electoral commissions, and who can afford a manual recount of the results, among other things. All this is taking place alongside the much-desired high turnout, which, according to them, was supposed to prevent the Turkish satrap from rigging the elections.
Alas, no one takes responsibility for yet another farce and for cultivation of false hopes. The voters have fulfilled their ‘duty’, as requested. Do you, dear ‘opposition’, have any duties too – or merely rights?
Of course, the circus performers can be understood: in the heat of summer, the urge to take off their masks becomes especially strong. Perhaps, one day we will even thank them for such a miserable performance. It is important to document that in the Armenian internal political swamp, there are no inhabitants for whom national identity, saving the country, survival in the geopolitical jungle, issues of war and peace really matter.
During the campaign, they did not care to explain to us how the ‘oppositional’ line on protecting Armenia’s borders, overcoming the consequences of the loss of Artsakh, and relations with Spyurk meaningfully diverges from the collaborationist one.
We also wrote that these ‘elections’ were essentially a Turkish-imposed plebiscite on the endorsement of Armenia’s colonisation. The ‘opposition’ has successfully and wholeheartedly legitimised it, and now the Turkish satrap has fresh arguments that his policy of ‘Real Armenia’ is supported by the regions most affected by it (the borderlands of Syunik and Tavush). Not because people are petty or selfish, but because they have been offered no real alternative, no meaningful engagement, and because the main ‘opposition’ force has chosen to invest in bribes and crude polling by unscrupulous Russian and Israeli political strategists instead of advancing a credible alternative and reaching every corner of the small country. Therefore, excuses based on ‘the people’ and allegations that ‘the elections were rigged’ may be convincing for their receptive sponsors, but they will not subdue our vigilance.
The Armenian world’s attention should not be sidetracked by pretenders crowding the scene and consuming valuable time. The key conclusion is that substantive change cannot occur within the logic and the rules of the Turkish-cultivated feudal clan system. Only this realisation will allow us to focus on overcoming the consequences and mitigating them in the future.
Among many urgent tasks, the preservation and implementation of Section 907 of the United States Freedom Support Act should remain an absolute priority for the Armenian world. This is the last potent and tangible non-Armenian asset we still have from the extensive arsenal that has been squandered by the rulers of the Third Republic. And so far, despite all the efforts of the Turkish and Azerbaijani lobbying machines, which have considerable support among large American corporations and the Israeli lobby, the Turkish world has been much less successful in Washington, than in Yerevan. These efforts will not cease, and we must set ourselves up for a long struggle – there is no alternative, when you have something valuable to lose.
Fortunately, we are not alone in this struggle: there are other centres of power and influence that are cognisant of the importance and the relevance of the Armenian factor. As with the adoption of Section 907 in 1992, they are well aware of how dangerous it would be to leave such a valuable asset to Turkey and how foolish it is to waste it by handing it over to collaborationists in Yerevan as a toy. Being aware of our own merits and cultivating ties with our allies in preserving and enhancing the Armenian factor is something that requires and deserves our daily efforts.
Systematic cooperation and coordination with powerful actors of the world is an admirable task for genuine and committed aristocracy – the one that the allies of the Armenian world are counting on. Formation of national aristocracy is a necessary step for building Armenian subjectivity. The institutionalisation of the aristocracy and of disparate Armenian communities is more relevant than ever today, when geographical Armenia continues to be represented by a comprador bourgeoisie, consisting of time-servers, collaborationists, and unprincipled amateurs. Such an ‘elite’ simply cannot be a ‘legitimate’ representative of the Armenian world on the global arena.
In conclusion, we would like to ‘thank’ those Armenians of Spyurk who stubbornly refuse to acknowledge reality, flattering their conscience and ego by pouring money during ‘election’ cycles into dwarfish political fringe groups and delusional imitation activities inside Armenia. In a system where there is no real parliament, no political culture, no political system with constructive rules of the game, no competitive contest of ideas and concepts, it is simply absurd to appear out of nowhere and to expect to achieve a tangible result in Turkish-staged ‘elections’. As a result, the votes cast for these pretenders were only redistributed in favour of Pashinyan and the ‘oppositionists’, who are scarcely different from him.
By their generous support for obviously hopeless candidates of obviously meaningless ‘elections’, those ‘concerned’ Armenians and patrons from the Spyurk communities only contributed to strengthening and legitimisation of the collaborationist regime.
