Category: Publications
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Should revolution reach the Constitutional Court? Armenians will decide on April 5…
By Armen Grigoryan On 6 February, an extraordinary session of the National Assembly of Armenia approved a referendum on amending the Article 213 of the Constitution. The decision was approved by 88 votes, including the ruling My Step coalition and the only independent MP, Arman Babajanyan. The Bright Armenia faction’s 15 present members voted against,…
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State Capture by Means of Constitution: Armenian and Hungarian Cases
By Armen Grigoryan Introduction In 2012, when President Serzh Sargsyan suspended diplomatic relations with Hungary after the extradition of Ramil Safarov to Azerbaijan, most Armenians’ perception that Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán himself played an important, if not decisive role in the unfortunate decision to extradite the notorious axe-murderer, was quite accurate. It is a bit…
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Armenia’s Post-Revolutionary Government Seeks to Speed up Reform
By Armen Grigoryan A year after winning a two-thirds majority at the snap parliamentary elections, Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has acknowledged flaws in the government’s previous approach to the reform process, admitting that some essential reforms have practically been stalled. Pashinyan continually enjoys a considerably high level of public support, and needs to take decisive…
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Tsnelisi-Chorchana Crisis: Facts, Details and Chronology
By Tornike Zurabashvili The decision of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia to set up an observation post between the village of Chorchana in the Khashuri municipality and the village of Tsnelisi in the Russian-held Tskhinvali Region/ South Ossetia in August 2019 caused weeks of crisis at the occupation line. The situation did not…
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“Armenia first”: behind the rise of Armenia’s alt-right scene
by Armen Grigoryan Armenia’s 2018 revolution may have pushed a kleptocratic regime out of power, but today the country’s conservative agenda is radicalising under new conditions.
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Tearing apart: what drives political polarisation in Georgia?
Lessons learnt from the 2018 Presidential elections By Tornike Zurabashvili Tornike Zurabashvili is an independent political analyst based in Tbilisi, Georgia. From December 2016 through June 2019, he edited Civil.ge, Georgia’s leading English-language daily news and analytical platform. He is currently a fellow at the Eurasia Democratic Security Network.
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Running out of steam: Georgian politics after the May 2019 elections
By Max Fras Local mayoral by-elections and parliamentary by-elections in May and June 2019, Georgia’s last electoral test before the 2020 parliamentary elections, signal a turbulent year ahead for Georgian politics and society. Although the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party won throughout, the elections revealed that both GD and opposition parties are struggling to present…
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Zelenskiy faces tough choices amidst high expectations
By Maryna Vorotnyuk On April 21, Ukraine held the second round of presidential elections where Ukrainian citizens had to choose between the incumbent president Petro Poroshenko and the popular comedian-turned-politician Volodymyr Zelenskiy. With 73 percentof the vote, Zelenskiy secured a landslide victory across an absolute majority of Ukrainian regions. Zelenskiy is widely believed to reflect the…
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Armenia is a Russian ally and EEU member, so how did it pull off a democratic revolution?
By Dr. Karena Avedissian For Armenia, a Russian ally, a member of the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), and once regarded as increasingly autocratic, the 2018 Velvet Revolution was a remarkable achievement.