Armenia’s experience of managing the COVID-19 pandemic offers some adverse lessons on the importance of properly designed rules, their implementation and the role of state institutions. Armenia’s case also provides insight into the importance of communication and engaging the public in a crisis - one which started in public health, but quickly affected the economy, society and politics.
In April 2018, Nikol Pashinyan, then an opposition MP, led a large coalition of disenchanted citizens in what became known as Armenia’s “Velvet Revolution” to oust the regime led by Robert Kocharyan and then Serzh Sargsyan. Since then, Prime Minister Pashinyan has crafted his governing style as a responsible and caring patriarch of the nation. He has taken a wide range of responsibilities on his own shoulders, including personal pandemic-related outreach to the Armenian public through social media livestreams. This style of governing may have been triggered by the new government’s sense of infallibility, bolstered by Pashinyan and his coalition’s popular election. However, this kind of governing could undermine the importance of relying on institutions in general terms, and the state’s ability to get through the pandemic-induced crises.
For the promises of Armenia’s 2018 revolution to become firmly rooted in the state and the society, a state based on the rule of law is of paramount importance for Armenia. It may be difficult, but it is a condition sine qua non for the country’s future development. This process cannot be interrupted or put on the backburner because of COVID-19. On the contrary, the pandemic is a litmus-test on how the rule of law is being built in Armenia.
