Funding Pashinyan’s Election Campaign
YEREVAN (Azatutyun.am)—A coalition of Armenian vote-monitoring groups claimed on Thursday that a commercial bank owned by government-linked businessmen is sponsoring pre-election concerts for the ruling Civil Contract party in breach of Armenia’s campaign funding rules.
Fast Bank financed the first such open-air concert in Gyumri on April 19 as part of what organizers call the Voice of Peace Music Festival. It featured live performances by professional musicians as well as Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s self-styled pop band.
The stage in Gyumri’s central square was decorated with banners bearing slogans similar to Civil Contract’s motto for the June 7 parliamentary elections. Pashinyan and his political allies wore baseball caps with the ruling party’s campaign logo emblazoned on them.
They have urged supporters to attend the next concert that will take place in Yerevan’s Republic Square on Saturday. They said it will be dedicated to Armenia’s Citizen Day marking the anniversary of the 2018 “velvet revolution” that brought Pashinyan to power. However, a company organizing the concerts, Domino Production, denied on Thursday any connection between the upcoming show, also sponsored by Fast Bank, and the public holiday.
“We regard the April 19 concert in Gyumri and the April 25 concert planned in Yerevan as Civil Contract’s campaign event in a certain sense,” said Daniel Ioannisyan, the coordinator of the Independent Observer coalition.
Ioannisyan insisted that the Fast Bank funding for the concerts amounts to election campaign donations to Pashinyan’s party. He said it violates an Armenian law that bans businesses or any other legal entities from financing political parties.
Armenians are allowed to do that only in their individual capacity. The maximum amount of annual donations made by a single person is capped at 10 million drams ($26,000). A violation of these requirements is a crime punishable by heavy fines and up to two months in prison.
Fast Bank did not comment on its financing of the concerts. The bank is owned by businessman Vigen Badalyan and his brother Vahe. They are widely regarded as figures close to Pashinyan’s political team. Vigen Badalyan is a friend of parliament speaker Alen Simonyan.
Civil Contract was already accused by two Armenian media outlets in 2024 of illegally financing its election campaigns. In separate journalistic investigations, they suggested that the ruling party resorted to financial machinations to circumvent the legal cap on political donations. Pashinyan denied any wrongdoing.
