Every time a developing democracy slaps handcuffs on a retired head of state, the international press corps treats it as a triumph for the rule of law. It is nothing of the sort. When former Armenian leaders get hauled into custody amid sweeping graft probes, naive observers cheer accountability. They assume this is the painful, necessary surgical removal of corruption. They are entirely wrong.
What we are actually watching is the institutionalization of retributive politics. It is a dangerous escalation where the ballot box is treated merely as a temporary truce before the next wave of indictments.
Let us dispense with the fairy tale that state prosecutors operate in a vacuum of pure jurisprudence. When a regime changes and immediately targets its predecessors, justice takes a back seat to political survival.
The Institutional Curse of Retributive Governance
I have watched transition economies fall into this trap for decades. Foreign observers love to talk about clean breaks and institutional reform, but they ignore the incentives driving these high-profile arrests.
When a ruling faction makes jailing the former president a core metric of success, they establish a terrifying precedent. They signal to their own successors that leaving office alive means facing a prison cell.
Look at the mechanics of these investigations. They rely on vague statutes regarding abuse of office or state asset mismanagement. These are charges broad enough to ensnare almost anyone who has ever held executive power in a semi-presidential or parliamentary system where the executive branch inevitably touches every major economic transaction.
Why the Lazy Consensus Fails
The standard media narrative frames these corruption probes as anti-corruption victories. This analysis ignores game theory entirely.
If losing an election means losing your liberty, your property, and your reputation, politicians will simply stop losing elections fairly. They will rig the game harder, suppress opposition media more brutally, and cling to power past their expiration dates. Why step down peacefully if the reward is a jail cell?
By criminalizing the previous administration, current leaders eliminate the incentive for peaceful transitions of power. They turn politics into a zero-sum death match.
Imagine a scenario where every incoming administration knows it will be prosecuted by the next one. The logical outcome is autocracy, because no rational actor will voluntarily disarm.
The Illusion of Accountability
True institutional maturity looks boring. It looks like independent regulatory agencies, transparent tax codes, and civil service protections that survive changes in government. It does not look like the dramatic perp walk of a 70-year-old former leader broadcast across state television.
Bread and circuses satisfy the public desire for blood, but they leave the underlying system just as corrupt as before. In fact, they make it worse. They give the current administration a convenient smoke screen. While everyone is distracted by the circus of prosecuting the old guard, the new guard quietly carves up the state apparatus for themselves under the banner of reform.
We saw this script play out across Latin America and Eastern Europe. The names change, but the playbook remains identical.
The Real Cost to Economic Stability
Investors do not look at high-profile political arrests and think, "Ah, what a clean marketplace." They look at them and see a jurisdiction of extreme volatility.
Capital flees uncertainty. When the rule of law is weaponized against political rivals, property rights become conditional on who holds the keys to the prosecutor's office today. Today's hero prosecutor is tomorrow's defendant when the political winds shift.
Breaking the Cycle
If Armenia and other nations trapped in this loop genuinely want functional governance, they need to stop celebrating political show trials.
Immunity for past acts—while politically unpalatable—was historically invented for a reason. It was designed to allow peaceful transfers of power without requiring incoming leaders to wage total war on their predecessors. When you strip away that buffer, you trade long-term stability for short-term emotional catharsis.
The next time you see a headline about a former president locked in a detention cell, do not applaud. Start counting down the days until the current leaders find themselves on the receiving end of the exact same machinery.
Power hates a vacuum, and vengeance hates a statute of limitations. Stop calling it justice. It is just revenge with a gavel.
