Moral component must dominate at 2026 elections - expert 

ArmInfo. Aliyev, when sentencing Armenian prisoners of war to life imprisonment,  deliberately chose the day following the Zayed Award ceremony.  Political scientist and member of the Alternative Projects group Vahe  Hovhannisyan wrote about this on his Facebook page.

According to him, this was done for one simple reason: to humiliate  the Armenian people. "The day before, a public act of humiliation of  the delegation took place in front of the cameras, when the Armenian  delegation bowed before Aliyev, who, motionless and silent, dominated  the space. Nothing prevented Nikol, upon receiving the award, from  saying, 'Thank you, but I cannot fully accept this because my  compatriots are in Baku prisons.' Nothing prevented him from  declaring that this was neither a full-fledged peace nor a  full-fledged award while Armenian churches, cities, and villages were  being destroyed, while hundreds of thousands of Armenians were  deprived of the right to visit the graves of their relatives and  enter their own homes. Neither international law nor international  etiquette prohibited this. Only one thing prohibited it: the agony of  morality in Armenia, the lack of internal public pressure," the  political scientist noted. He added that the moral component should  dominate in the upcoming elections. Hovhannisyan believes it's wrong  to assume that social and economic promises alone will achieve a  significant shift in public sentiment. "There's no need to be afraid,  no need to shy away from confronting the Armenian voter, all  electoral groups, with a moral choice. We need to make them feel  hurt, make them think, make them not be afraid to admit that we're  being humiliated. It's precisely through the moral component that we  can achieve a turning point in the decisive electoral segment-the 60%  of indifferent and undecided voters.  Moreover, this must also be  done among the remaining undecided voters, those same "680,000." As  Archbishop Bagrat says: the temple will triumph over the street,  spiritual Armenia will triumph over the real, false Armenia. This  isn't the real Armenia, no matter how the slogan sounds. This is a  truly false Armenia, where we are humiliated-demonstratively and  cynically-while we pretend not to see, not to notice, and not to be  humiliated," the political scientist emphasized.

In his opinion, social and economic programs can change segmental  sentiments, but a massive, transformative shift in public sentiment  is possible only through intangible ideas. Perhaps some voters do  vote "based on what's in their refrigerators," but this is no excuse  for opposition political and social forces.  On the contrary, it's a  serious challenge to create ideological corridors that can lift even  the "refrigerator voter" to a different level of perception.

"Post-war humiliation truly doesn't suit us, and to achieve this, we  must reveal the true source of this humiliation, which lies beyond  our refrigerators. Respect for the voter must dictate the need to  elevate them several levels higher-to where the current authorities  constantly try to push them down, turning them into a 'well-fed and  well-lived' mammal. It's important for anti-government systems to  have a deep understanding of all this," Vahe Hovhannisyan concluded.