The Armenian authorities have revealed that the Learning is Trendy education campaign founded by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s wife, Anna Hakobyan, has been funded by the state — an initiative critics say is part of a pre-election strategy.
Learning is Trendy is a series of talks mimicking Ted Talks, which was created by Hakobyan as part of the movement bearing the same name, launched in November 2024. The talks have been held since March by Hakobyan’s My Step Foundation, with Pashinyan frequently featuring as a guest speaker in events across the country.
Arshaluys Barseghyan
On Friday, Pashinyan’s Chief of Staff, Arayik Harutyunyan, revealed that the campaign was being funded from the state budget, adding that it was a ‘priority programme’ for Pashinyan.
Harutyunyan did not provide details on how much money had been allocated to the programme since its launch months ago.
RFE/RL reported that the authorities had told them that only events involving the Prime Minister had been financed by the Prime Minister’s Office. They added that Pashinyan had participated in ‘almost all major meetings of this campaign, sometimes even during working hours, delivering speeches and answering questions’.
The fact that the events, which had been promoted as an initiative of the Hakboyan-led foundation, had been funded by the budget raised concerns among government watchdogs, with some describing it as a pre-election strategy.
According to RFE/RL, the audiences of the talks mostly consisted of teachers. Audience members have to register in order to attend the talks, and their phones and other video recording devices were reportedly collected during the event.
‘In fact, these are disguised pre-election meetings and campaigns for the benefit of their personal ratings, political force, and party — [all funded] by our taxes and the [state] budget’, Gor Madoyan, a government critic and a columnist wrote on Facebook, adding that the state budget ‘should serve all of us, not the narrow interests of a small group through closed meetings and limited publicity format’.
Madoyan also questioned if the funding was legal.
On Saturday, a day after the funding sources of the campaign were made public, Armenian Parliamentary Speaker Alen Simonyan announced that the country’s next parliamentary elections would be held on 7 June 2026.
‘The countdown has begun…’, wrote Simonyan in a post on Telegram.
Previously, Pashinyan revealed that the Family Podcast, hosted by him and Hakobyan, and launched in late 2024, was produced and filmed by a crew working for the government.
‘Even though it’s a family podcast, it’s also part of the Prime Minister’s activities. The same operators who cover my visits, government sessions [etc], also film the podcast, edit it in the same way, and so on’, Pashinyan said during a press briefing in January 2025.
Arshaluys Barseghyan
