Armenia’s ex-president Sargsyan reiterates his goal to topple Pashinyan

On 14 April, Armenia’s third president, Serzh Sargsyan, delivered a lengthy speech addressing the accusations that he and his Republican party brought Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to power, and other current issues, reiterating that their goal is to topple Pashinyan’s government.

The speech was delivered at the 35th anniversary of the founding of the Armenian Republican Party, with Sargsyan acting as its chair. Alongside stating the numerous achievements of the party, Sargsyan did not deny their mistakes, but claimed that they ‘have not been fatal’ for the country and to its people.

Addressing the accusations mainly coming from the circles of Armenia’s Second President Robert Kocharyan in early March that the Republican Party ‘brought’ Pashinyan to power, Sargsyan suggested that those who deliberately circulate those accusations do so ‘in order to clean up their not-so-distant past’.

Back in March, Pashinyan responded to the former leaders of Armenia, calling them ‘election-falsifying usurpers who never received’ the votes of the Armenian people and urged them to tell him ‘who brought you to power back in the day?’.

Following this, Sargsyan called the Velvet Revolution in 2018, which ended his tenure in office, a ‘notorious’ event, and dubbed the current government ‘capitulating authorities’ in regards to their negotiations with Azerbaijan and its defeat in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War.

Power of the people: what made Armenia’s Velvet Revolution successful?

In 2018, Armenians peacefully ousted their government in a fast-moving decentralised revolution. Six years on, and amidst regional upheaval, participants of the Velvet Revolution assess the key factors in the movement’s success. In the run-up to the spring of 2018, a change of government in Armenia seemed unlikely at best. Opposition to Serzh Sargsyan’s government had been steadily growing, intensifying in light of the announcement on 12 April that he would run for prime minister, having s

OC MediaArshaluys Barseghyan

He claimed that some Armenians even push the narrative that, despite demanding that the Republicans step down, the Republicans should not have done so —  ‘You should have held onto power, even at the cost of slaughtering us in the square’.

He said that even one death during the Velvet Revolution would have triggered a wave of disobedience and chaos across the country, drastically increasing ‘the risks of external threats’.

Sargsyan also used this narrative to attack civil society, saying that such a development would have caused the condemnation of human rights defenders, whom Sargsyan called ‘grant-eaters’, accusing them of ‘throwing themselves into action at the behest of their masters’.

‘Meanwhile, after 2018, they — the [George] Soros-affiliated and other structures with the same goal — went blind and deaf, as if they vanished underground, because they had no instructions to act’, Sargsyan said.

He also called on critics of the Republican Party to take responsibility for their choices, by saying ‘don’t tie the donkey you kissed to our door’. The phrase was a reference to Pashinyan as having been chosen as ‘the loudest braying donkey from the herd’, an idiom meaning to choose the worst person from the group.

He added that the decision to blame the Republican Party for the mistakes of  their critics had been chosen ‘by those who were unsuccessful in their attempts to achieve power, including our former partners in the struggle’.

Sargsyan was apparently hinting at Kocharyan’s supporters, adding that ‘they are simply trying to snatch opposition votes’ ahead of the 2026 parliamentary elections.

The former president also invoked conspiracy theories and lashed out at perceived domestic enemies in order to explain the ultimate defeat of Nagorno-Karabakh.

The whole nation of Armenia was defeated in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict by ‘forces in our region that had their own calculations and plans — and were determined to carry them out by all means’.

‘They found in Armenia a group of anti-national scum, who had no red lines, ready to do anything for power and money, who clouded the minds of many with populism, and now they won’t stop at anything until they fulfill every demand of their masters’, Sargsyan said.

Future steps and commentary on the peace process

In Monday’s speech, Sargsyan also highlighted several steps which they would undertake in case of coming to power. Aside from the ‘restoration of our Armed Forces’ combat readiness’, he also hinted at the restoration of ties with Russia, saying their priority would be ‘distinguishing partners from allies’.

He additionally vowed to create ‘an atmosphere of solidarity’ within the country, noting that they would subject ‘strictest punishment’ to anyone who has acted against the constitution and laws of Armenia.

Sargsyan also stressed the necessity ‘to fundamentally transform the information policy’ in the country, without further elaborating what he meant. He only said that with this transformation, they would be ‘putting an end to the manipulation of society, polarisation, and propaganda of hostility’.

An additional necessity Sargsyan spoke about was a new strategy ‘to internationalise the Artsakh [Nagorno-Karabakh] issue’, which would include legal, political, and humanitarian components.

Sargsyan criticised the peace process with Azerbaijan, saying that a peace treaty ‘must have at least two sides’.

‘Yet in today’s process, only one side is visible: Azerbaijan, openly and step by step dictating its conditions from a dominant position’, suggesting that as a result of the change of power, ‘with a new negotiator and authoritative international mediators, the situation can still be changed’.

Members from the ruling Civil Contract party swiftly criticised Sargsyan, seeing his remarks as a competition between him and Kocharyan, for the purpose of ‘scor[ing] points’ prior to the 2026 elections.

In response, parliamentary speaker Alen Simonyan said that whenever Sargsyan says anything negative about them, it only results in an increase in their rating, and even urged him to participate in the upcoming elections

‘He is a rare individual who has been rejected by the Armenian nation’, Simonyan said, in turn criticising Sargsyan for his corruption, seeing the previous regime’s mistake in the defeat of Armenia in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War.