Armenia in top league of democracies, premier states 

ArmInfo. The Varieties of Democracy Institute has published a report entitled "Autocratization Changing Nature?"

At a Cabinet meeting on Thursday, Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol  Pashinyan referred to the report, saying:

"A very important fact has been recorded for Armenia. For the first  time in the history of our country, the Republic of Armenia is  defined not by the term 'electoral authoritarianism', but by  'electoral democracy'.  This means that in terms of democracy there  has been a change in the classification of the Republic of Armenia. 

"That is, even after the non-violent, velvet, popular revolution of  2018, this organization continued to view Armenia as a country with  an authoritarian electoral system. The meaning of this was that there  was an authoritarian system that, in fact, used the electoral process  to ensure its own reproduction. What is the essence of this new  definition? The essence of this new definition is that the  authorities are formed through elections, that is, elections are not  an instrument of reproduction of power, but elections are an  instrument of power formation. 

"To put it very simply, we can state that the most recent example,  with the early parliamentary elections in Armenia in 2021, the  Republic of Armenia entered, relatively speaking, the top league of  democracies, if we classify democracies, we can say so. It is very  important that this organization also gives a general classification,  taking into account the results of the activities of various  democratic institutions within the country. 

"Of course, this does not mean that democracy in our country is  perfect or flawless, just by the sum of different episodes we got in  such a category, which, I think, is worth mentioning. Of course, this  does not mean that democracy in our country is perfect, just based on  different episodes we received that classification, which, I think,  is worth mentioning. And we must emphasize once again that democracy  is a priority for us. And our Government is committed to establishing  and developing democratic institutions in the Republic of Armenia.  First of all, I would like to congratulate us on the change of this  classification; I would like to draw our attention to two  circumstances. We must try to occupy higher places in that top league  every year. Secondly, we must be able to capitalize these indicators  to serve the issues on the agenda of the Republic of Armenia," the RA  Prime Minister's press office reports.