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Protests in Armenia - call of population who are fed up with corrupt regime: Russian political analyst

29 June 2015 15:38 (UTC +04:00)

Moscow. Farid Akbarov – APA. The developments in Armenia are the manifestation of socio-economic problems the country’s population has long suffered from. The protests mostly stem from social discontent. This is not simply due to the rise of tariffs over electric power. The discontent should be looked through from a broader context, political analyst Sergei Markedonov, who is the assistant professor at the regional studies and foreign policy department of Russia State Humanitarian University, told APA’s Moscow correspondent.

According to him, the holding of protests in Armenia over socio-economic problems is in fact nothing new. “Such demonstrations have been commonplace in this country for many years. Protesters called for the closure of trade centers owned by oligarchs outside a government building in late December last year. The people protested the price hike and the devaluation of national currency. Streets protests are not a rare case for Yerevan”.

“The protests which began on June 20 in Armenia are the call of the country’s population who are fed up with the government, the corrupt regime. The protests strongly condemn the government, calling for a change of regime. The opposition has not yet worked out a plan. The demonstrations are arbitrary for now,” said the political analyst.

Markedonov stressed that he does not share the same opinion as some political analysts who believe Ukraine’s “Maidan” is repeating itself in Armenia.

“I strongly disagree with this. Some experts say the ongoing events in Armenia have been planned by the West and are against Russia. This is untrue. People in Armenia are protesting against the government, not Russia. The Armenian population has long suffered from socio-economic problems. During all this while, Russia has always lent a hand of assistance to Armenia. But Yerevan proved unsuccessful in solving social problems,” he added.

The analyst said Russia is quite strong today in Armenia in terms of economic planning.

“So therefore Moscow must draw a conclusion from what is happening in this country. As you know, Inter RAO ES, which is an energy distributing company in Armenia, belongs to Russia. So I think Russia needs to intervene in these developments because the West is also closely following these events. The West is interested to have Russia’s position in this region weakened but it does not need the destabilization of the situation in Armenia, either,” he noted.