Netgazeti, Georgia

April 24 2018

 

 

 

 by Mikayel Zolyan

 

What would seem unimaginable a month ago and unlikely a week ago has happened in Armenia. Resignation of Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan became inevitable during daytime on 23 April. Readers of Netgazeti may remember that the author of these words was quite sceptical about prospects for protests just a week ago.

 

Many thought back on 22 April that the protest movement was going to suffer a defeat. [MP] Nikol Pashinyan and other leaders of the protests were detained. It would seem at first glance that the movement was beheaded and the government was to proceed with targeted repressions until the movement found itself localised and suppressed.

 

However, events took quite a different turn. Pashinyan said at the 23 April rally that government representatives kept coming to him and offering various options for compromise. At the beginning, they offered that Sargsyan would resign in half a year, then in two months, and then in a week. Pashinyan gave the same answer to all these offers: He demanded that Sargsyan resign in two hours.

 

Finally, Pashinyan's demands were satisfied: Serzh Sargsyan published a statement, in which he said: "I was wrong and Nikol Pashinyan was right".

 

What happened? The problem is that the detainment of the protest leaders had a reverse effect. After the opposition supporters emerged from the first shock, something unprecedented started taking pace in the whole of Armenia. People took to the streets in the capital city [Yerevan] and remote villages. Something unimaginable happened in Yerevan in the evening: Two endless streams of citizens headed from various areas in the city to the central Republic Square.

 

When these two streams met, a most numerous rally during the protests assembled in the square.

 

The opposition said that 160,000 people attended it and the government spoke about a rally of 35,000, although it was clear that the mobilisation was unprecedented.

 

It became clear even to the government on the evening of 23 April that it would be necessary to use force to stop the protests, but this would lead to a high number of victims.

 

Given Serzh Sargsyan's reputation of being a cynical and cruel politician, many thought in Armenia that he would not surrender and would suppress the protests even at the expense of numerous victims.

 

At his talks with Nikol Pashinyan on the morning of 22 April, Sargsyan effectively openly threatened to repeat the events that took place on 1 March 2008, when 10 people died at a rally as a result of the use of force.

 

However, to use force, Sargsyan needed support from the political elite, which was weakening every second. At the same time, 24 April was drawing closer. Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day [24 April] was an additional factor of psychological pressure on Sargsyan.

 

Finally, Sargsyan, the chairman of the Armenian Chess Federation, realised that the game was lost and made a statement, which left even many of his opponents surprised due to its sincerity.

 

Why did this happen?

 

What happened is a result of the coincidence of several factors at the same time. Sargsyan's phenomenal unpopularity was one of them. It is difficult to find another politician in world history, who would lack popular support to such an extent, but would nevertheless try to extend his rule after the end of his term as president. What Sargsyan always succeeded in was that he used to deceive his opponents and probably it was due to this that he ceased to be rational.

 

Had Sargsyan agreed to appoint someone else as prime minister, remaining [in power] as "eminence grise", the country could have avoided protests or they would not have been so large. However, what Sargsyan probably feared more was that it was his companions, who could have removed him from power, but not people. Probably it was this that he meant when he said that he was wrong.

 

Another factor that made the protests successful was the tactic chosen by the opposition. During the days of the protests, I got the impression on many accounts that Pashinyan and his companions had read a book on revolutionary technologies and non-violent protests.

 

Of course, Pashinyan and his team also made mistakes, but as a whole, he presented himself as a certain combination of Vladimir Lenin and Mahatma Gandhi during the last days of the protests. On the one hand, they resorted to as much pressure as possible, depriving the government of the opportunity to take a breath, and on the other, they made protests non-violent, which did not enable the government to use force.

 

Despite provocations during the protests on the part of police and pro-government "titushki" [paid thugs, who worked closely with the police during protests in Ukraine against the regime of Viktor Yanukovych], the opposition effectively used no force. Many university students and young people participated in the protests and even school students stood there, which made the use of force psychologically difficult.

 

The position of external forces, in particular Russia, is the third and most unexpected factor. The position of Western countries was more or less predictable – appeals to resolve the situation peacefully, but Russia's position proved to be unexpected. We have become accustomed to the fact that as a rule, Russia takes such processes as a threat to its own influence and what is worst, perceives them as a threat to stability within Russia. However, Russia has not made similar statements this time and comments by [Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson] Maria Zakharova were conspicuously neutral and Russian TV channels did not speak about another "colour revolution", "Maydan", and the "cookies of the Department of State".

 

Such a reaction was so unexpected that a conspiracy theory emerged, saying that Moscow was behind the protests, which seems absolutely unimaginable.

 

In reality, Moscow presumably took into account its experience of Ukraine and refused to openly assume responsibility for the use of force by an unpopular politician. Moreover, Moscow presumably expected that as a result of all this, power would go to incumbent Acting Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan, who is believed to be a pro-Russian politician and a comparatively calm attitude to the protests is due to this.

 

It was presumably due to these reasons that Moscow decided to disregard the events in Armenia that may have their impact on protest movements in Russia proper as well as in other countries of the [Russian-led] Eurasian Union.

 

What may happen?

 

The opposition won a sweeping victory. However, as Nikol Pashinyan said at the 23 April rally, not everything ends with it. A few days earlier, Pashinyan published the following programme: 1. Serzh Sargsyan's resignation; 2. Formation of a provisional government led by a "popular candidate" [most likely implying Pashinyan proper or one of his companions] [square brackets as published]; 3. Early [parliamentary] elections with all measures taken to make them free and transparent.

 

The first point in the programme has already been achieved, but Pashinyan and his supporters will now have to struggle to implement the remaining points, which may prove to be more difficult than the struggle against Sargsyan, as it is difficult to say, how long it will be possible to maintain the "revolutionary" energy of the masses. At the same time, Karapetyan, who is more popular among people than Serzh Sargsyan, may enjoy support from Moscow, as said above.

 

Pashinyan does not yet have an experienced political team. However, the experience his companions have accumulated over the past three weeks should also be taken into account.

 

One way or another, everything now depends on Pashinyan's ability to transform street protests into constant political support.

 

I think it will not be an exaggeration to say that Pashinyan is the most popular politician in Armenia now. If he manages to "push back" Karapetyan and the Republican Party and to come to the head of the government, holding really transparent elections later, his party will win much more votes than his Yelk [Way out] bloc in 2017.

 

Of course, the Republican Party will do all it can to prevent this from happening, but this cannot be ruled out in case of street protests. Correspondingly, the Republican Party will have to make concessions, a rift will take place within the party, and some MPs will quit the Republican Party to side with Pashinyan.

 

The events in Armenia are still far from having the knot untied. Serzh Sargsyan's resignation is not the end to the process. It is the beginning of the process. However, the resignation is quite important as a fact. This is the first case in Armenian history, when a ruler had to resign because of popular protests. At the same time, Sargsyan did not use force, which can also be regarded as a precedent not only for the future of Armenia, but also for the rest of the post-Soviet countries.

 

At the same time, this is the first case in not only Armenia, but also in the whole post-Soviet area, when the leader of protests was not from either political or business elite.

 

[Former Georgian President] Mikheil Saakashvili, [who led protests in Georgia in 2003 and deposed President Eduard Shevardnadze] was from Shevardnadze's team and [former Georgian Prime Minister and founder of Georgia's ruling Georgian Dream party, Bidzina] Ivanishvili, [who defeated Saakashvili's party in 2012], is an oligarch. He [Pashinyan] is a former journalist turned opposition politician. It is going to be quite important, if he manages to come to power.

 

The main achievement for Armenian citizens is that they managed to stop what many in Armenia called "Turkmenisation" and "sultanate", i.e. the creation of Serzh Sargsyan's personal regime for an indefinite time. No matter how events may unfold, we can be sure that Armenia is not facing the prospect of becoming a "sultanate" in the near future.