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T he member of the Armenian delegation to PACE Sona Ghazaryan delivered a speech at the Plenary Sitting of PACE Spring Session.

“ Honorable Chair,

Dear Colleagues,

Today at the PACE, we are discussing how to safeguard democracy in these difficult times, during the world pandemic. Democracy has been and will be a core value for my political party in Armenia. As a party that started governing after the Velvet Revolution of 2018, we know that democracy has no viable alternative. Democracy is also resilience, security.

Many of my colleagues in the EU were wondering how after the challenges and crises caused by the pandemic and the 44-day war, my political party was reelected? I think the answer is very simple. People reelected democratic values and a political platform whose campaign was built on two main principles: rule of law and regional peace in the South Caucasus.

Here at the PACE several month ago, we had a good report on Armenia and our reforms. The Monitoring Committee welcomed Armenia's progress in its democratic development since 2018 and how we have emerged from a serious political crisis triggered by the war that Azerbaijan unleashed against Nagorno-Karabakh in Fall 2020.

These elections were exceptional in Armenia's history since independence. It was widely the practice that elections, specifically because they were rigged, would trigger protests and crises. This time around, Armenia actually succeeded in overcoming a crisis through the fair elections.

Here I would like to add another organization that has conducted research on Armenia. By the Varieties of Democracies report, while Electoral Democracies have increased substantially in number since the end of the 1980s, two countries in particular – one of them Armenia – has made democratic transitions from electoral autocracy to electoral democracy in 2021.

As a final thought, a transition to democracy, even being a democracy is constant work and democracies should support each other on this path. ” Sona Ghazaryan concluded.