Well, well, well. It seems the land of apricot brandy and existential angst has done something truly remarkable: it has defied the Kremlin’s bear-hug and voted for a government that doesn’t automatically genuflect to the ghost of Stalin. Armenia’s pro-Western coalition, led by the ever-optimistic Nikol Pashinyan, has scraped a victory in an election so fraught with Russian pressure you could spread it on a stale blini. And Tory MPs, bless their clueless hearts, are now lining up to applaud this as a ‘triumph of democratic resilience.’ Cue the champagne corks and the inevitable hangover.
Let’s get one thing straight. This is not some plucky underdog story from a Will Smith movie. This is a country wedged between a NATO member (Turkey, if you’ve been living in a cave) and a nuclear-armed autocracy (Russia, the land of snow and spite). Moscow has been leaning on Yerevan like a drunk uncle at a wedding, threatening energy cuts, deploying its favourite tool of cheap propaganda, and generally acting like a petulant ex-lover who can’t accept the relationship is over. Yet Pashinyan’s party managed to win. Hooray. But before we start erecting statues of Winston Churchill in every Armenian village, consider this: the margin was razor-thin. A paper-thin victory against a backdrop of economic blackmail and the shadow of Russian mercenaries is not exactly a resounding mandate. It is a squeaker, a fluke, a fart in a hurricane.
And then there are the Tories. Good God, the Tories. Never has a group of people so spectacularly missed the point. They are clapping for Armenia like it is a debutante ball, completely ignoring that their own government has been slashing foreign aid, cosying up to Saudi Arabia, and treating the rule of law like a suggestion from a particularly boring relative. ‘Oh, look! Democracy in action!’ they cry, while simultaneously eroding voting rights, fiddling with electoral boundaries, and pretending that partygate was a minor hiccup in the great British tradition of boozy governance. The sheer hypocrisy is enough to curdle milk.
What the Tories fail to understand is that Armenia’s victory is not a cause for celebration but a cry for help. The country is broke, blockaded by Turkey and Azerbaijan, and still reeling from the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war where Russia stood by and watched like a bored spectator at a cricket match. The pro-West government has achieved something, yes. But achieving it means they now have no excuses left. They must actually govern. And that means tackling corruption so entrenched it makes the Kremlin look like a group of amateur pickpockets. It means dealing with an economy that runs on remittances and moonshine. It means placating a populace that is desperately poor and has been fed a diet of nationalist hysteria for decades.
But no. Better to focus on the glib narrative. ‘Armenia chooses freedom over fear!’ shriek the headlines, as if freedom comes in a neat little package from Amazon Prime. Never mind that the opposition still got a massive chunk of the vote, that Russian interference is still a factor, and that the country’s very survival depends on a delicate balancing act between East and West. This is not a binary choice between good and evil. It is a messy, cynical, complicated morass of geopolitics, and the Tories, in their infinite wisdom, are treating it like a reality TV show.
So here’s my advice to the triumphant Armenians and their fawning Tory cheerleaders: enjoy the moment. Because it is fleeting. The hangover is coming, and when it arrives, you will find that a pro-West government is no shield against Russian brinkmanship, Turkish hostility, or the cold reality of a society held together with duct tape and pure defiance. But hey, at least the gin is cheap. I’ll drink to that. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a date with a bottle of London Dry and a complete disregard for the rules of journalistic impartiality. Cheers.
