Populism in Armenia receives vulgar and dirty reflection which today we call “nikolavirus” or “nikolism – Ara Saghatelyan

Populism in Armenia has become a public governance form and though Armenia is not the only country were populists came to power but for the countries like Armenia which are in transition phase the populist policy creates bigger dangers, social-political figure Ara Saghatelyan said at an open discussion today.

“Populists in the USA present less danger as there are established institutes there, finance-economic systems, media literacy among elites. Here these systems are weakened and we, in fact, have lost the immunity. After mutating, populism in Armenia received the vulgar and dirty reflection which today we call “nikolavirus” or “nikolism,”” he said.

Ara Saghatelyan noted that Armenia has suffered big loses as a result of wide usage of populism, lies in the information field, falsification and manipulations the authorities were guided with, the country has also been discredited outside while Nikol Pashinyan who came to power with lies and falsification during this period tries to reinforce his positions by spreading lies and falsifications, drawing dividing lines among the people, discrediting authoritative figures, which finally distorted the main ideology of the state.

The figure also stressed that using “fake news” as tool, the authorities pushed out the truth from the consciousness of the people and formed false reality making all live0 there.

Saghatelyan said part of society is still in confusion and continues to receive manipulative information and transfer it to others like a virus.

“In conditions of absence of state mentality and constructiveness they need only votes and are ready for any step to reach it,” Saghatelyan said.

He stressed that the fact that the authorities, seeing that falsifications work inside, tried to do the same outside which resulted in Armenia’s discrediting.