A poor PR campaign, or peace at any price: political technologist on Pashinyan's message

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan cannot directly admit that by initiating constitutional changes, he is fulfilling Azerbaijan's demand. As a result, the Prime Minister is forced to cite various kinds of “ideological” arguments. This opinion was expressed to Sputnik Armenia by political technologist Armen Badalyan, commenting on the Prime Minister's message to citizens, in which he stated the need for a new Constitution.

“If we put aside the terminology and vocabulary used by Pashinyan, the whole point is the following: let's change the Constitution, and then maybe Aliyev will make peace,” Badalyan said.

According to the political technologist, the last several visits of the Armenian Prime Minister (Washington, Paris Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Munich Summit) have been a failure for Pashinyan in terms of Western support. In all likelihood, he already realizes that he is no longer a sought-after figure by the West.

“Having no Western support, he is now trying to conclude a peace treaty at any cost, relying on the demands of Azerbaijan and Turkey. And peace has its price, which Azerbaijan has said: the Armenian Constitution has a reference to the Declaration of Independence, which contains clauses on the unification of Armenia and Karabakh. This is the whole goal, everything else is just a smoke screen of this program with a rather poor PR-campaign and equally poor presentation,” Badalyan stressed.

Nevertheless, the political technologist is convinced that Pashinyan, with his current rating and small electorate, will not be able to “sell” the constitutional changes.

As for peaceful prospects, real peace is possible only in case of a change of power in Armenia and the solution of the Artsakh issue according to the option offered by Russia and Iran.

According to Badalyan, in the rapidly changing geopolitical situation, the South Caucasus seems to be returning to the zone of Russian influence, which may create favorable conditions for Armenia.

“The situation in the world is changing so fast that Pashinyan may not even have time to change the Constitution. So I wouldn't take his program of constitutional changes seriously,” Badalyan added.

Note, explaining the need for a new Constitution, Pashinyan said that the strategic goal is “the transition from the residual functioning of a stateless nation to the state functioning of the people.” He also believes that the previous constitutional referendums raise questions about legitimacy.

Meanwhile, opponents accuse Pashinyan of accepting another demand of Azerbaijan to exclude the reference to the Declaration of Independence from the text of the main law. The Declaration contains a paragraph on Nagorno-Karabakh, in connection with which Baku has repeatedly demanded to change Armenia's basic law.

Reprinted from https://am.sputniknews.ru/