“It’s more than two years now since you swept into power with very high hopes for the so called ‘velvet revolution’. When I look at Armenia today it seems many Armenians feel that those hopes have been dashed. What has gone wrong?” BBC HARDtalk presenter Stephen Sackur asked Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at the beginning of an interview on Friday.
The premier, however, did not agree with the presenter’s claim. “All citizens of Armenia live in a democratic country. And in 2019 we had the biggest economic growth in Europe, and we had big economic success, our country made tremendous progress in all international ratings in terms of democracy, freedom of speech, independent judiciary, anti-corruption policy,” the PM said.
“The pandemic situation interrupted our flight, but we will continue,” Pashinyan added.
Touching upon the Armenian government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, Sackur stated it has been a real failure.
“I think it’s too early to have conclusion,” the premier responded, adding conclusions should be drawn after the pandemic is defeated worldwide.
Sackur, however, recalled that Armenia’s coronavirus death rate is approximately six times higher that neighboring Georgia’s and significantly higher than Azerbaijan’s, which suggests the Armenian government failed to control the pandemic.
“We are in the process of overcoming this pandemic, and as I said it’s too early to make conclusions on that,” Pashinyan said.
The presenter observed that people judge the Armenian leader on his specific actions, referring to Pashinyan’s participation in a dinner to celebrate the inauguration of the Artsakh president in late May, where he was seen amongst many people not wearing a face mask or practicing social distancing.
“And only a few weeks later in early and mid-June your country was in the midst of a terrible crisis with more than 600 cases of Covid-19 per day. You castigated your own people saying, ‘people simply disobey the rules on face masks’, but you have done it yourself,” he stressed.
In response, the PM said on that day they acted according to the rules that existed in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Stephen Sackur next quoted the Republican Party of Armenia as saying in a statement that the premier has made many mistakes in the coronavirus response and should resign.
“Armenia is democratic country and opposition is free to express themselves. I am very glad that now opposition in Armenia is acting much easily than before the revolution,” Pashinyan replied.
The presenter also reflected on the developments around the Constitutional Court of Armenia, noting that the removal of its three judges are connected with second President Robert Kocharyan’s case.