Since the final loss of Nagorno Karabakh in 2023, many of us have wished that Pashinyan’s government would simply disappear. But hoping for an outcome without practical means to bring it about is futile. The value of 2025 drawing to a close is that 2026 offers a lawful and practical instrument to remove this failed and incompetent government through elections. Given the opinion polls and the prevailing mood on the street, for Pashinyan to remain in power, he would have to manipulate the process before, during, and after election day. The year 2025 has been a terrible one for the nation, as were the years since 2020, but with a crucial difference: every fault line—political, territorial, diplomatic, religious, judicial, economic, and moral—has widened. What was once failure has hardened into decay and intent. One of the most consequential developments of the year was the preliminary signing by Pashinyan and his foreign minister of the so-called peace agreement with Azerbaijan. This agreement reaffirmed Armenia’s concessions and granted Azerbaijan a corridor through one of Armenia’s most strategic region. It marked not only the formal and final acceptance of the loss of Nagorno Karabakh and the abandonment of its political leaders and Armenian prisoners of war still held in Baku, but also cast grave doubt on the prospect of reclaiming territories within Armenia now under Azerbaijani occupation. Worse still, once signed, this agreement will institutionalize further concessions and losses in the form of constitutional changes, additional territorial surrenders, and forced one-way population movements. The domestic consequences of these concessions have been equally dire. Pashinyan and his narrow circle have turned inward, no longer seeking legitimacy through performance but through coercion. The year has been marked by an unprecedented campaign against the Armenian Apostolic Church—an institution that for centuries has anchored the nation’s spiritual and cultural identity. Through harassment, prosecutions, and propaganda, the government has sought to silence the Church’s moral voice, perceiving its independence as an existential threat to one-man rule. The sight of clergy humiliated and parishes intimidated has struck at the heart of Armenian society, eroding one of its last sources of cohesion and dignity. Armenia no longer even bothers to pretend it is a democracy. The country has become a borderline dictatorship, a police state. Parliament remains a rubber stamp for the executive. The judiciary, already compromised, now serves as an instrument of political persecution. Armenia’s largest philanthropist and businessman, and more than forty religious leaders, opposition figures, journalists, activists, and ordinary demonstrators languish in prison for their political beliefs. The suppression of the free press has become systematic, with members of the media critical of Pashinyan’s government routinely harassed, detained, or silenced through unlawful means.The regime’s message is unmistakable: political dissent is treason, and loyalty to Pashinyan is loyalty to the state. Throughout all this, Europe remained silent. The European Union and its member states, once vocal about democratic values, stood by as Armenia’s institutions were hollowed out and repression deepened. Their silence through the entire year was deafening, and history will judge it as complicity rather than caution. The cumulative effect of these developments is a society adrift and demoralized. Polarization has become institutionalized, not as a byproduct of politics but as a tool of control. The government thrives on division, turning citizen against citizen, the faithful against the secular, the young against the old. The dream of 2018—the promise of renewal, transparency, and national unity—now feels like a distant memory, replaced by cynicism and fear. Looking ahead, Armenia approaches 2026 not as a democracy preparing for elections, but as a wounded nation searching for rescue. If 2024 was a warning, 2025 has been the reckoning. Armenia has reached a point where continuity equals collapse. The preservation of the state, its dignity, and its future now depends on a decisive national awakening—one that transcends personalities and demands accountability, integrity, and purpose. The year ahead must not be another chapter of decline but the beginning of change and recovery․
