Pashinyan's post-election aggression indicates that he knows very well that he did not win. Taking mandates and combining all political methods of struggle is the right thing to do. Armen Ashotyan

As I predicted, the past elections were neither free nor fair. And the only thing that was truly transparent were the ballot envelopes. Armen Ashotyan, the vice-chairman of the Republican Party of Armenia, wrote about this from the Vardashen Penitentiary Institution.

“2. The opposition cannot and could not succeed only through electoral mechanisms. Other street and political struggles are imperative.

3. The elections were rigged before, on, and after election day. Nikol’s “formula for success” was clear: resources, fear, pre-election bribery, and the West’s “OK.”

4. Even after all that, Pashinyan stole the PAP’s mandates live on air, seizing on the will of the people.

5. The new NA is therefore not legitimate (no matter how much Pashinyan tried to cleanse himself of the fact of illegitimacy as a result of the government's activities after the 2021 elections. If the NA is not legitimate, then the bodies derived from it, including the government, and the decisions could not be legitimate).

6. The NA and the upcoming program of the government to be approved by it are also not legal, since the legal foundations of its formation have been undermined from the very beginning (CEC decisions).

7. The opposition with all its components is obliged to act united, and the first steps taken in this direction are welcome and require continuation.

8. Targeting Serzh Sargsyan or the Republican Party by prominent circles even in this situation is reminiscent of mental illness. Speculations related to the Constitution make me say that "the Constitution is hindering the disunited opposition." If some circles fought against their own shortcomings and mistakes as much as against us, they might have been more successful.

9. I think it is right to take mandates and combine all political methods of struggle. However, before that, a full and honest vetting of one’s own candidates should be carried out in order to prevent the inevitable success of “mandate theft” attempts.

10. In the newly independent history of Armenia, there have been cases when one or another opposition force accused the authorities of the day of reducing their votes. However, this is the first time that the votes of one of the opposition forces were not simply and factually reduced, but an entire faction was amputation from the National Assembly on live television. If Pashinyan accused all previous authorities of electoral fraud, now he has entered history as an election thief as well.

11. Pashinyan’s post-election aggression testifies to the fact that he knows very well that he did not win, and that his declared “victory” was fabricated, dishonest. Because those who win honestly try to have a more cohesive, unifying, national attitude and image.

PS. The ancient Romans told the leaders fighting against them: “Either defeat Rome, or surrender.” In particular, this is how the meeting of the Roman general Marius with King Mihrdat ended.

Nikol is certainly not a Roman in terms of his civilizational level. But more importantly, in our reality, the Roman formula should sound differently: “Either defeat Nikol, or disappear as a state,” he wrote.