Friday, June 26 2015 18:36

Emmanuil Mkrtchyan, David Stepanyan

 

On June 19, the Armenian youth launched a timeless sit-in demanding the authorities to cancel the public services watchdog’s decision to increase the electricity price by 7 drams. The electricity prices in Armenia were the highest ones in the CIS, including Russia, yet before the last increase and could be compared to the ones in the countries of Western Europe.

 

Assessing de visu the real situation in the country, one can see behind ENA’s “debt” the system problems of the corrupt government and mismanagement of economy in the country. It is not a secret in the country that the incomes, which the monopoly supplier of electricity to the population received beyond any doubts, were “sliced” not only by the leadership of INTER RAO’s subsidiary, but also by representatives of various branches of power in Armenia.

 

 

The greatest part of what the civilized world calls political establishment and intellectuals receive “money envelopes” from the ruling Republic Party every month. The content of the envelopes is accrued from the “dirty” money collected from the big companies operating in Armenia.  Naturally, the ENA leadership that has several times groundlessly increased the electricity price for consumers with the support of the public services watchdog could not “slice” the accumulated billions alone. Many beneficiaries in Armenia have actively helped the Company in it either directly or indirectly.

 

This is what made the people take to the street and demand to stop the plunder continuing in the country for decades. The slogan “No To Plunder!” under which the people are protesting reflects the motives and the reasons of the fight better than anything. To understand the real motives of the protests, one should just look closely at them.

 

The best indicator of the real situation is the lack of politicians and heads of numerous NGOs, as well as “intellectuals” that rise to the bait of authorities’ “envelopes”, as well as rural and citified shag-rags who receive that 5000 AMD. This time reps of the middle class and the youth have stirred out. These are people whom the authorities have failed to turn into receivers of a poverty pittance. These are those people who decline the Prime Minister’s poor 2000 AMD as absolute plunder compensation. The main point here is adhering to principles and declining any sort of negotiation with political powers – oligarchs.  Only this will make people who claim to be the authorities limit their appetite.

 

Besides the fact that protest rallies in Armenia are depoliticized there is another fact that does take aback. In the modern history of Armenia not once have the authorities allowed to block a street for several days under the colour of a protest rally. On June 23 the Armenian police dispersed the rally and detained about 200 people, who were all released on the very same day. It is more than natural that more reps of the fuming youth headed towards Baghramyan Ave. Again no one hindered their advance. In this light, it becomes clear the authorities have given a pass to protesters for a reason.

 

Given the fact that a man, who is quite a talented player, heads the corrupt and rotten to the core power pyramid, there are several variants for such tolerance that is absolutely extrinsic to the Armenian authorities. First of all, it is to be mentioned that the participants of this very rally are no players of this game. The authorities are simply trying to use these people in their foreign policy games to demonstrate first of all to Russia that Armenia does have the gut to hold another Maidan on the post-USSR territory. 

 

Given the fact that Armenia does not lack narrow-circle personal interests that dominate over political interests in the past 20 years, Sargsyan is quite likely to have the purpose of increasing his own political capitalization in the eyes of Western and Russian partners. This will give “lame duck” Sargsyan the chance to retain power after the 2017 parliamentary and 2018 presidential elections in Armenia.            

 

Naturally, a certain role here may belong to the geopolitics. Moscow's latest arrangements with Baku and Ankara and the multi-billion Russian military hardware sales to Azerbaijan could not remain beyond the vision of Armenia's military and political authorities.  It appears that following Armenia's involuntary accession to the Eurasian Economic Union some officials in Moscow might have arrived at a conclusion that Armenia has finally found itself in the Russian pocket. And now it is possible to create any unions even with a view to harming Armenia and Artsakh. It is the nationwide protest actions against the aspiration of the Russian state corporation's subsidiary to raise the electricity tariffs that can force the Kremlin to make careful promises to the Azerbaijani and Turkish friends, because the ongoing protest actions may develop into anti-Russian ones.

 

Another surprising fact is the feverish and widespread desire of the Russian media, experts and politicians to present the protest actions in Armenia as another U.S. State Department-funded Maidan, whereas, in the reality, the action aims to resolve one problem only. One can only guess why Moscow is doing it. Meanwhile, one can suppose that this is a reciprocal move in the multi-way game being played by Sargsyan. The reality is that despite all those "Armenia cannot do without Armenia" remarks, the major part of the Armenian society does not change its friendly attitude to Russia, strange though it may appear. We still want to be partners.  –L,m-n-