Lawyer says corruption deepened in Armenia since 2018 change of power

Armenian lawyer Arsen Babayan has accused the country’s post-2018 leadership of entrenching systemic corruption rather than dismantling it, asserting that state institutions have become politicized ahead of the June 7 parliamentary elections.

Speaking before the launch of a workshop titled “Corruption in the Pre-Electoral Period” on Friday, Babayan, founder of the AntiCor platform, said the 2018 change of power was driven in part by public anger over graft. “All the accusations leveled against the former governments pale in comparison to the scale of systemic corruption under the current leadership,” he told Panorama.am.

Babayan alleged that Armenia’s Anti-Corruption Committee has been co-opted into partisan campaigning for the ruling Civil Contract party, citing its public statements and videos as evidence. He argued that law enforcement agencies are now directly engaged in political propaganda, undermining their mandate.

“Corruption is not merely about bribery; it is a systemic phenomenon. We see manifestations across all sectors, including political pressure on opposition forces,” Babayan said.

He claimed that his platform has documented dozens of instances of entrenched corruption during the pre-election period.