ARE ARMENIAN PEOPLE ON THE VERGE OF A POWERFUL EXPLOSION?

Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
Feb 5 2015

5 February 2015 – 4:28pm

The opposition plans to hold rallies in the regions of Armenia and
a powerful rally in Yerevan in the near future, Prosperous Armenia
party leader Gagik Tsarukyan said at a meeting, Armenian media report.

“Armenia needs a new government and educated people. In this regard,
I stress my willingness to support such candidates. I invite the
Armenians living in Armenia and abroad. I invite well-educated
professionals to unite to form an alternative to the current
government,” Trend cited Tsarukyan as saying.

Tsarukyan noted that in the current situation, all political forces in
Armenia, except for the ruling party, feel themselves out of play. The
authorities must change the approach, by providing an opportunity
for other political forces to also be in power.

“One careless action, one word can bring hundreds of thousands of
people onto the streets … It will be an uncontrollable wave. In
this situation, our position is clear – the demand of the people
should be the determining one,” ‘Novosti Armenia’ cited Tsarukyan.

Experts Alexander Makarov and Alexander Iskandaryan in an inteview
with ‘Vestnik Kavkaza’ agreed that the dissatisfaction of Armenia’s
population is gradually maturing with the current state of affairs
in the country, but expressed confidence that a social explosion does
not threatened to the country.

“As for the discontent, it is clear that in the post-Soviet republic,
a state that is under siege for more than 20 years, with a fairly
complex migration and regional situation, there is a certain stratum
of the population that lives below the poverty line. This layer and
some other people have some resentment about the policy of the Armenian
authorities. However, it seems to me unreasonable to say that Armenia
is on the verge of a social explosion,” the director of the Armenian
branch of the Institute of CIS countries, Alexander Markarov, said.

Director of Caucasus Institute Alexander Iskandaryan, in his turn,
reminded that the poor social status of the present day has its origins
in 2008. “Since then, the country has witnessed economic stagnation:
the growth is a very small, or it doesn’t exist aat all.

Social discontent is quite broad, and the popularity of the authorities
i not very wide. However, all these phenoms are not new, and some
drastic changes that have come in recent months and made social
discontent a very serious, I personally do not see,” he said.