Armenia’s authorities display emotional breakdown during protests in Yerevan – Sergey Markedonov
23.06.2015,
16:33
Armenia’s authorities displayed emotional breakdown during protests in Yerevan, Sergey Markedonov, professor at Russian State University, Department for Regional Studies and Foreign Policy, says on his Facebook page.
YEREVAN, June 23. /ARKA/. Armenia’s authorities displayed emotional breakdown during protests in Yerevan, Sergey Markedonov, professor at Russian State University, Department for Regional Studies and Foreign Policy, says on his Facebook page.
In early morning on Tuesday, the police chased away Armenian citizens who gathered in Baghramyan Avenue in a protest against the electricity price increase.
Some 240 protesters were taken to police stations. Some people were reportedly injured.
«The protest was mainly social. Who likes price rises? The protest was expected. Both ordinary people and experts were speaking about blatant outrage of the energy company yet in late May, when I was in Yerevan.
The question is who will run this protest. The authorities have emotionally snapped,» Markedinov says adding that this is a bad sign, but Serzh Sargsyan have done plenty to mitigate consequences of the 2008 bloodshed in Yerevan.
In his opinion, restraint was insufficient, and this is Caucasus and people here remember such things.
He also called for speaking exactly about Armenia, not about so-called colored revolution theory.
«Are protests in Yerevan Maidan? Are they the West's sophisticated technologies? Attacks against Russia and its neighborhood is continuing. First of all, Maidan is not a virus, and Tahrir is not a virus – both emerged as a result of certain circumstances, which have been created by many. But what appeared was not the same, and things in Armenia have their own peculiar characteristics – I mean the opposition to Serzh Sargsyan,» Markedonov says.
The expert says the public disaffection for the authorities has been accumulated for years.
«Look at least at the results of the 2013 election – Raffi Hovhannisyan won 36% of votes not as a leader, he merely scored protesters' votes with no any prominent figure in the campaign,» he said.
The decision to raise electricity price by 6.93 drams or 16.7% comes into force on August 1. --0---
In early morning on Tuesday, the police chased away Armenian citizens who gathered in Baghramyan Avenue in a protest against the electricity price increase.
Some 240 protesters were taken to police stations. Some people were reportedly injured.
«The protest was mainly social. Who likes price rises? The protest was expected. Both ordinary people and experts were speaking about blatant outrage of the energy company yet in late May, when I was in Yerevan.
The question is who will run this protest. The authorities have emotionally snapped,» Markedinov says adding that this is a bad sign, but Serzh Sargsyan have done plenty to mitigate consequences of the 2008 bloodshed in Yerevan.
In his opinion, restraint was insufficient, and this is Caucasus and people here remember such things.
He also called for speaking exactly about Armenia, not about so-called colored revolution theory.
«Are protests in Yerevan Maidan? Are they the West's sophisticated technologies? Attacks against Russia and its neighborhood is continuing. First of all, Maidan is not a virus, and Tahrir is not a virus – both emerged as a result of certain circumstances, which have been created by many. But what appeared was not the same, and things in Armenia have their own peculiar characteristics – I mean the opposition to Serzh Sargsyan,» Markedonov says.
The expert says the public disaffection for the authorities has been accumulated for years.
«Look at least at the results of the 2013 election – Raffi Hovhannisyan won 36% of votes not as a leader, he merely scored protesters' votes with no any prominent figure in the campaign,» he said.
The decision to raise electricity price by 6.93 drams or 16.7% comes into force on August 1. --0---
