This is our Armenia. You go find yours. (Part 1)

Translated from Armenian

Recently, the Armenian National Assembly adopted two bills which limit the right to vote in parliamentary elections and in referenda to those Armenian citizens that are permanent residents of the country, defined as having physically been in Armenia for at least one of the two years preceding the respective vote.

The risk that the legislature sought to address is a real one for various countries. It would be tragic if the state policy of a nation is dictated by those who do not directly bear the impact of that policy on a daily basis or, more so, are led by the political interests of foreign nations. The local population will become hostage to the diaspora, at best – and will become dependent on a foreign nation, at worst.

The issue at hand isn't that the legislature sensed trouble and sought to resolve it. The issue is the way the legislature resolved it, effectively disenfranchising hundreds of thousands of Armenian citizens without substantive analysis or debate. After all, these bills were adopted at breakneck speed, going from bill to law in three weeks flat.

What consequences can these legal changes have? What could have been done instead? And why did the legislature act with such haste? I've attempted to address these questions in a new light.

Here's part 1.

Decimating our already decimated human capital

According to the immutable Article 2 of the RA Constitution, power belongs to the people in Armenia, and the people exercise their power largely through elections and referenda. By limiting the right to vote to only permanent resident Armenian citizens, the legislature affirms: in Armenia, power – and, thus, Armenia itself – belongs to the residents of Armenia.

This is a clear message to Armenian citizens living abroad: "you largely have no say in building the future of Armenia, and the fact that you are Armenian citizens is of essentially no importance to us." This also establishes that the most fundamental relationship one can have with Armenia is not one of citizenship; hencetoforth, being a citizen of Armenia is subordinated to being a resident of Armenia. This approach is essentially reflected in the substantiation of these two bills.

The same message is delivered to diasporan Armenians generally. Rather than motivating them to assume a legal relationship with the Armenian State – one based on citizenship – we strip the institute of citizenship of its most fundamental rights. The diasporan is left with little incentive to participate in Armenian nation-building other than patriotism or, at best, the pursuit of profit. She no longer has the possibility of taking ownership of Armenia by assuming citizenship.

After all, through these actions, the legislature ceases to recognize Armenia as an Armenian state, or a nation-state – that is, a subject of international law representing the agenda of all Armenians. Moving forward, Armenia is viewed simply as... a state, period, and the "Armenian people" the same, as the residents of Armenia. In this regards, it's noteworthy that the rationale of the bills refers to local government elections, essentially equating national elections with local ones. Otherwise, the legislature would have recognized that the actions of the Armenian state have repercussions also for Armenians living abroad. And if that's the case, based on its own rationale for passing these bills – that suffrage must be limited to only those carrying the consequences of their vote – it would realize the contradictory nature of these bills.

The fact that you are Armenian citizens is of essentially no importance to us.

If the legislature is at peace with these decisions, that's one thing. But against the backdrop of these bills it is no longer acceptable to speak of an Armenian nation of ten million or of how important human capital is for a country devoid of natural resources and access to sea. This approach effectively decimates our already decimated human potential.

Unfortunately, such bills aren't isolated "tweaks". They're laden with the danger of informing state policy which keeps Armenians living abroad at an arm's length distance, effectively saying "we can have friendly relations, but you're not one of us."

In other words: "this is our Armenia, you go find yours."

Instead of reducing the nation to fit the state, let's expand our understanding of the state to meet the nation

The solution that the legislature landed on reminds one of the famous phrase: "no man, no problem." And yet a surgical approach is warranted for the foundational and sensitive issues related to suffrage. Here are a few alternatives which could have been explored in light of this issue.

A. Established "diasporan" parliamentary seats. This solution would see that a certain number of parliamentary seats (for example, five out of a minimum of 101 constitutional seats) are elected by Armenian citizens residing abroad. This approach is implemented in France, Italy, and Portugal.

B. Maintain the suffrage of taxpayers. Many Armenian citizens living abroad have property in Armenia, such as real estate or vehicles, and pay property tax on that property (and also income tax if the propery is leased out). They are also owners of Armenian businesses that pay corporate tax. They regularly visit Armenia (not only to participate in elections) and pay VAT when making purchases. Suffrage should be maintained for at least such taxpayer non-residents. The essence of this approach is at play in Greece.

C. Adopt a qualification other than residency. Along the same vein, there are several non-resident citizens who regularly visit Armenia regardless of elections. The legislature can establish that those non-residents that have physically been in Armenia for a cumulative two weeks or more in the five years leading up to an election maintain their right to vote. This solution is implemented in New Zealand (at least one visit in the past three years), Germany (at least one visit in the past 25 years), and previously also in the UK (at least one visit in the past 15 years).

(If the reader is concerned that the previous two solutions are administratively burdensome to maintain, I would remark that they would actually require less administrative effort than what is anticipated by the adopted bills.)

Finally, the boldest and most fundamental solution would be the following.

D. Establish a bicameral parliament. This solution would see the establishment of a National Assembly comprising two chambers: an upper chamber (let's call it the "National Council"), which will be elected by all Armenian citizens, and a lower chamber (tentatively, the "State Council"), which will be elected by only resident Armenian citizens. Bills on matters of all-Armenian importance shall be adopted by both chambers to become law, whereas bills on matters of state or intrastate significance shall be adopted solely by the lower chamber. The possibilities of governance are endless with such a structure: for instance, the National Council may have an advisory role on other matters, it may have veto power on certain matters, the State Council may have the power to overcome that veto in certain instances, and so forth. The closest example to this is the Czech parliament, although the substance and functions of their chambers are different.

We mustn't shy away from such innovative solutions, if they are capable of accurately reflecting the essence of our state and our people and allowing us to effectively organize our political activity. This said, as a novely, such initiatives must undergo robust debate and intricate planning before they can be presented as viable solutions.

We mustn't shy away from such innovative solutions, if they are capable of accurately reflecting the essence of our state and our people.

As evident, there are several solutions that can be explored based on international practice and our own circumspect thinking. Similar solutions can also be explored for other matters that touch upon the global nature of the nation.

And in all such matters, let us be led by the principle not of limiting the nation to the confines of the state, but of expanding our understanding of the state and corresponding it to the nature of the nation.

"Doing nothing" is also a solution, if the problem is already solved

We established at the top that we do not want Armenian state policy to be hostage to foreign influence. Yet it's important to assess with a level head: was this really an unsolved problem for Armenia?

The impetus for these bills were, in essence, the "mass influx" of non-resident Armenian citizens to participate in the 2026 parliamentary elections. How many non-resident citizens actually paricipated in the elections? Armenian citizens residing in Russia were the primary target, and yet, official figures debunked the speculation that 80,000-100,000 voters flew in, and that instead the number was reasonably within the 3,358-ից 31,654 range. If we take the average of that range, 17,500, and assume that another 5,000 non-resident citizens voted in the elections (which, I believe, is still a far-fetched figure), we can conclude that approximately 1.5% of the million and a half voter turnout were non-resident citizens.

And this isn't surprising. The requirement to physically be in Armenia to vote is a "self-enforcing" mechanism, it already limits access to the electoral process by non-resident citizens and there's no need to put up further restrictions. For a number of countries with large diasporas, such a requirement is deemed sufficient to fend off foreign influence. This approach is implemented in Ireland, Israel, and India, which each have sizable diasporas.

In other words, perhaps the legislature attempted to solve a problem that was already solved.

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Cover image: "Wanderer above the sea of fog", by Caspar David Friedrich (1818)

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Stepan Khzrtian's work sits at the intersection of law, governance, and what it means to be Armenian – at home and abroad. He is the author of "House of Keepers of the Order", a political philosophy novel. Licensed in California and Armenia, he acts as special counsel to entrepreneurs and executives and is also the co-founder of Corpora and Huys Foundation.