Anna Hakobian has been visiting towns and villages across the country and holding indoor meetings with local residents as part of the campaign called “Getting Educated Is Fashionable.” Pashinian has spoken during some of those meetings attended by many local government officials and other public sector employees.
“It is one of the prime minister’s priority programs and it is implemented with the staff’s funds,” the chief of Pashinian’s staff, Arayik Harutiunian, said, answering a question from an independent parliamentarian.
Harutiunian did not disclose the amount of government money spent on the campaign which is promoted by a charity founded by Hakobian. Nor did he say why it is not financed by the My Step Fund charity.
No such funding was earmarked by Armenia’s state budget for this year. The total budgetary allocation to the prime minister’s staff exceeds 24 billion drams ($61 million). According the My Step Fund, Hakobian has held 36 meetings to date.
Harutiunian’s revelation is bound to add to opposition criticism of the campaign. Hakobian already sparked uproar last month when she switched to personal insults to regularly attack on social media opposition activists, public figures and other citizens critical of her government-backed activities.
Pashinian’s wife defended her use of words like “donkey,” “idiot” and “louse” during her most recent event held in the northern city of Vanadzor on May 31. She said that she had for years ignored slanderous claims about herself and her family and is now right to respond to them with insults. Hakobian also made clear that the insults are part of her stated efforts to help people become more educated.
Her detractors have linked those efforts to Armenia’s next general elections due in June 2026. They say Hakobian is trying to help Pashinian hold on to power.
The government funding for Hakobian’s campaign may also fuel more allegations of widespread nepotism within Armenia’s political leadership which opposition leaders say is part of broader government corruption.
It emerged on Thursday that the wife of Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan, Gohar Abajian, has become the chief executive of Enterprise Armenia, a state agency supporting business projects in the country. Harutiunian insisted that Abajian was appointed because of winning a job contest, rather than her government connections.
“There were many candidates [for the position,] and [Abajian’s appointment] was decided as a result of the competition,” said the chief of Pashinian’s staff.
The spouses of other senior members of Pashinian’s Civil Contract party have also landed lucrative jobs. In particular, the wife of Hayk Konjorian, Civil Contract’s parliamentary leader, was appointed last year as executive director of HayPost, the national postal service, after rapidly working her way up the company ladder. Her annual salary reportedly surged from 6.8 million drams in 2021 to 36 million drams ($92,000) in 2023.
“If, for example, Hayk Konjoryan were not the head of the ruling faction, would his wife have had this career leap?” Taguhi Tovmasian, an opposition lawmaker, asked Artur Nahapetian, the head of Armenia’s Anti-Corruption Committee, during a recent parliament debate.
Nahapetian refused to answer the “political” question.
Pashinian has repeatedly claimed to have eliminated “systemic corruption” in Armenia since coming to power 2018. However, members of his entourage are increasingly accused by media of using their positions to enrich themselves, their families or cronies. Last month, Pashinian threatened to jail opposition lawmakers that accused him of turning a blind eye to those media reports.