July 2014: police officers block activists from "Stand up, Armenia!" from moving towards Yerevan's Freedom Square. (c) Asatur Yesayants / VisualRIAN. All rights reserved.Over the last decade, President Serzh Sargsyan has ruled over Armenia in a style that Freedom House ambiguously calls “soft authoritarianism”. Sargsyan’s rule is characterised by widespread police violence and unlawful detention of journalists and activists. Falling short of the outright dictatorship in force in neighbouring Azerbaijan, Sargsyan’s authoritarian regime has managed to maintain a tight grip on power. It has steadily cleared the political field, leaving the electoral politics a doomed adventure for any force except the ruling party, but has maintained relative press freedom and freedom of speech, especially online.
Halfway into Sargsyan’s second term as president, there are few political opposition forces independent from his administration. One non-parliamentary group, known as Founding Parliament, has attracted attention for its nationalist rhetoric, radical social justice platform and refusal to engage in electoral politics. The group’s core of Karabakh veterans from the 1990s has ensured a uncompromising stance on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict — a position common to Armenians inside and outside the country, as well as the majority of politicians and activists across the political spectrum.
Indeed, the brief, but tragic flare-up of the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan in April 2016 provoked a wave of “national unity” — and public calls for a firmer position on the disputed territory of Karabakh. Three months later, an armed group seized a Yerevan police station, accusing the Armenian authorities of “endangering the security” of the country through their military conduct. Six members of Founding Parliament, including the group’s vice president, were among the gunmen.
