Summer of Protests

The appointment of Serzh Sargsyan as Prime Minister after two terms as Armenian President was the current ‘tipping point’ in Armenian popular politics that saw demonstrators pouring into the streets of Yerevan. Reminiscent of the Arab Spring in 2010, youth protesters marched through the streets of the capital with the slogan ‘Nikhol for Prime Minister’ and demanded not just the resignation of Sargsyan as Prime Minister but also the ouster of the Republican Party which has dominated the Armenian Parliament for more than twenty years. The protests that culminated in the resignation of Serzh Sargsyan on 23 April, was led by Nikhol Pashinian, a former journalist and founder of Civil Contract, an opposition party. It was his call for demonstrations against the Prime Minister’s appointment which morphed into a mass street movement that was subsequently joined by other parties. Sargsyan’s plans to remain in power indefinitely became unpopular enough to warrant the creation of a united forum across the political spectrum involving people from different social classes and including unarmed soldiers.

Identified as Transcaucasian, Armenia is small country with a majority of its 11 million ethnic community living as far flung diasporas. The 3 million Armenians, who live within the geographical limits of the state, are contained within a typical post Soviet system that can be identified as neither authoritarian nor democratic. Since 1999, the Republican Party of Armenia has dominated Armenian politics, with Serzh Sargsyan and Robert Kocharian serving as President. In April 2018 when his second term as President expired there was an attempt to retain Sargsyan as Prime Minister, with a changed constitution, where the role of the President would be downgraded and the head of the government would become the de facto leader of the country. Earlier in 2014 Sargsyan had publicly stated that he would not take the position of Prime Minister, so his motivations for accepting the position remain unclear. While the decision of the Party to sacrifice Sargsyan can be explained as a bid to hold on to power, Sargsyan’s unexpected resignation, without resort to violence, less than a week after changing his job in the face of street protests by groups that had barely any representation in Parliament is more difficult to explain.

This, moreover, is not the first time that the youth in Armenia have taken to the streets. A significant portion of the people in Armenia live below the poverty line and apprehension of government neglect of popular social and economic interests have led to frequent protests in recent years. In 2013 there were protests against the government’s decision to join the Russia led Eurasian Union rather than the European Union. In 2014 there were protests against questionable pension reforms. In 2015, there was widespread public reaction to a proposed hike in electricity rates, and ‘Electric Yerevan’, as the movement came to be known, was characterised as ‘new’ ‘unprecedented’ and ‘revolutionary’.

What stands out in the course of the recent Armenian protests is the unusual lack of debate on which external power acted as the catalyst. Along with this has come the recognition that these were just ‘Armenian’ protests that would have limited repercussions beyond its borders. The protests were not analysed as an expression of the rejection of either Russia or the European Union and Russia has responded with uncharacteristic restraint and noted that the protests are a ‘domestic issue’. Russian lawmakers and commentators have expressed support for Armenia regardless of its leader indicating a depth of relationship based on Russian control over much of the Armenian economy that Sargsyan’s resignation is unlikely to change. In any case Pashinian has clearly stated that the domestic changes would not affect external relations and Armenian foreign policy orientation.

Protests often frame a new political junction when the consciousness of fundamental change appears so it is significant that the protests have been perceived as a reflection of the emergence of a civil society within the state, which continues to remain an enigma in many post Soviet conditions. While the protests remain a process of empowerment, the call for a ‘peoples’ candidate’ has already met with criticism from the government which has upheld elections as the true expression of ‘people’ choice’. And while Armenia has seen recurrent protests over the last years and a proliferation of activist groups, there is also an underlying populist discourse on ‘national unity’, usually interpreted as support for continuity, that emerges whenever conflict erupts, as it did during the Four Day War (along the Nagorno-Karabakh line of contact) in April 2016.

However, echoing one of the protestors, it is important to keep in mind that ‘the question is not the park’, ‘the problem is not the electricity tariff’ and ‘the issue is not about elections’. Anti-regime movements have erupted across Eurasia with Moscow and St Petersburg witnessing localised protests of mortgage owners, protests in Azerbaijan over economic issues propelled by the falling value of its currency, protests over unpaid wages and lay-offs in Turkmenistan and protests in Uzbekistan against constant shortage of oil and gas. All of these are symbolic of deep seated grievances and expose the fragility of regimes that have continued unchallenged for the last two decades and more.

Anita

29 April 2018