Armenian
News Network / Groong
Guests
Hosts
Introduction
Hello,
and welcome to the Armenian News Network, Groong,
Week in Review. This show was recorded on Monday, June 13, 2022. Here are the
major topics we’ll touch on today:
● The Opposition Activates Politics
● Russia Revises its Parukh
Response
● War Dividends
● Caucasus Barometer Survey Takeaways
To talk about
these issues, we have with us:
Hrant Mikaelian, a political scientist and multidisciplinary
researcher in social sciences based in Yerevan. He is also a senior researcher
at the Caucasus Institute.
Topics This Week
Opposition Active Politics
Since the
opposition started daily protests and civil disobedience late in April, we’ve
been covering their activities in the street both in our live shows on Twitter,
as well as in our weekly podcasts. This past week it seemed like the opposition
ramped up its political outreach.
- On Monday the opposition parties in the
parliaments of Artsakh and Armenia met to discuss security challenges and
to coordinate their fight for an “Armenian future for Artsakh”. The
Armenian government has refused to hold parliament to parliament, or
really any sort of official relations with Artsakh since the 44-day war.
- Then Sergei Lavrov was in Yerevan on Thursday, and the opposition staged
their protests at the foreign ministry building to urge him to stop
dealing with the Armenian authorities.
- On Friday, it emerged that the opposition had met with Kara
McDonald, a US deputy assistant secretary for democracy at the State Dept.
The opposition discussed issues around democracy and complained about the
one-sided support of US and EU officials for the Armenian government
despite its disturbing democratic failings.
Hrant, what do
you think of this apparent activation of the opposition’s efforts to reach out
and talk to external players?
Notes:
● The government deployed extra heavy police lines
to prevent the protests coming anywhere near the building.
● The opposition did not get to meet with Lavrov
but delivered its message that this government does not have a mandate to cede
Artsakh to Azerbaijan.
● The US Embassy did not comment on the meeting,
but in May they had simply urged the opposition to “refrain from violence and respect the rule of law and
Armenia’s democracy.”
On Tuesday, there
was an “International Conference” organized by the Council of Europe and
Armenia’s Constitutional Court and funded by western NGOs. The opposition was barred from
participating.
● What sort of “western values” were being
explored at this conference, that it barred the political opposition from
attending?
● Can anyone in Armenia outside of the ruling
party, trust the west given its open hypocrisy and pushing of western interests
as so-called “western values”?
Russia Revises its Parukh Response
As we mentioned
earlier, Sergei Lavrov was in Yerevan and at the end of his meetings at the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, there was a press conference. A couple of things
of note:
FM Mirzoyan claimed that Armenia does not have a political crisis
at home.
FM Lavrov was
asked how Russia planned to address the plight of over 400 families of
Artsakh’s eastern frontier Parukh village who were
displaced by Azerbaijan’s attacks 3 months ago in March. His original response
was that the issue would be addressed as part of the border demarcation
process, but Azerbaijan quickly replied that Parukh
had nothing to do with that process. As a result Russia’s foreign ministry revised Lavrov’s statement to say that they hoped the
process would increase trust between Armenia and Azerbaijan and prevent future
escalations.
● Why did this happen?
The November 2020
agreement states that the two sides, Armenia and Azerbaijan, would stand at
their positions on November 10, 2020. Everyone is very strict in wanting to
stick to the agreement, except that anything that Azerbaijan can get away with
by force seems to be allowed and doesn’t get talked about. To me, it seems like
Russia is the paper tiger here.
● Has Russia basically agreed that whatever Baku
gets away with, using force, they get away with and that’s a done deal?
● Have they basically agreed to the loss of Parukh?
War Dividends
As the war in
Ukraine resulted in large sanctions against Russia, many Russians, as well as
Ukrainians and some Armenians from those two countries have come to Armenia on
a semi-permanent basis, have registered their businesses in Armenia, moved a
bunch of money into Armenian banks, and so they’ve increased the country’s
economic activity in the first quarter of 2022, as well as the demand for
Armenian Drams, boosting
the value of the currency.
● What is happening to the Armenian economy right
now, as it reaps “war dividends” from the crisis in Ukraine?
● Inflation is rampant in Armenia, - around 8.4%
in April, and even more in May - and this additional demand is likely to
exacerbate it further. How is the Central Bank dealing with this issue?
● Should the economic outlook for Armenia in 2022
be revised?
● Is this current bump a temporary side-effect of
the crisis, and will go away as the crisis fades, or is there a way to
integrate the reasons that have given rise to this activity into enduring
features of the economy?
○ Are we seeing promising efforts towards that by
the current government?
The Armenian Dram
has remained stable in the past few years despite cataclysmic events such as
the 44-day war and the Covid pandemic. In the past we’ve talked about this issue,
and we’ve noted that one of the key support structures for the currency are the
remittances from Russia, and some other countries to Armenia.
● What is the state of remittances from Russia,
particularly since the Ukraine crisis?
● Have remittances from other countries fared
similarly? Have proportions in the various countries remained the same? For
example, remittances from America, other EAEU countries, etc.?
● During the Ukraine crisis Russia began to demand
that countries pay for their Russian gas in Rubles. This has helped shore up
the Ruble internationally. Armenia agreed to pay in Rubles; what effect did
this have on Armenia?
CRRC Survey Takeaways
On to our final
topic, Hrant thank you for bringing to my attention the Caucasus Barometer survey results. The CRRC, Caucasus Research Resource
Center, conducted this significant survey from mid-December 2021 through
February 2022.
The first slide
of note shows that 57% of the polled people do not trust the current government. If we include all the
negative responses, over 71% indicate that they distrust this government.
Over half of the
population think that the government treats people unfairly.
This is a jarring
result when it comes to a populist government that came to power on the basis
of promises to treat people daily and remove corruption from the country.
So it’s not surprising to see then that the
disappointment levels regarding expectations from the Velvet
Revolution in 2018 are
somewhere between 34-53%.
The
disappointment levels with how the current government appoints its ranking officials is very high, between 54-71%.
The population’s
anxiety levels about their physical existence has shot up. 61% are “very worried”, with over
70% generally anxious about the future.
When it comes to leaving Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh) within Azerbaijan with some
degree of autonomy, the poll results are radically negative about it, with 94%
saying NEVER!
So what should Armenia do about Artsakh’s lost territories?
42% want Armenia
to recover all territories lost.
33% want to
regain all of Nagorno Karabakh proper; I think that means regaining Shushi,
Hadrut, Parukh, etc.
Only a quarter of
those polled want to maintain today’s status quo.
To get a feel for
the political tendencies of those polled, the results paint a rather
expected result, with ruling party Civil Contract showing a deeply contracted
base at 21%, while Armenia Alliance, Hayastan Dashinq,
is at 11%. Prosperous Armenia polls around 3-5%, and others including Pativ Unem, I have Honor
Alliance, poll at 1 or 2% each. Most notably the number of those who do not
identify with any existing parties is the largest block of voters representing
between 37 and 49%.
The opposition’s
protest movement has been rallying thousands to demonstrate daily against the
government. Yet, discussions with experts indicate that while support for Pashinyan’s government and ruling party has dwindled,
people are still suspicious of the opposition’s ties to former regimes; and
this is perhaps evidenced by the super-low poll for Pativ
Unem, which is associated with 3rd President Serge
Sargsyan.
People would like
to see a so-called “third force” to rise and lead forward from this vacuum of
trust. Not the Civil Contract, but also a force clearly and transparently not
tied or reliant on former regimes. They’d like to see some technocrats who can
adeptly manage through the current catastrophic dead-ends created by the
current regime as a result of the 44-day war.
● Thoughts?
● Are there any names thrown around on the
streets?
Wrap-up
That
was our Week in Review show, and we hope it helped you catch up with
some of the issues in and around Armenia from this past week. As always, we
invite your feedback and your suggestions. You can find us on most social media
and podcast platforms, or our website Groong.org.
Thanks
to Laura Osborn for the music on our podcasts. Don’t forget to subscribe to our
channel on YouTube, Like
our pages and follow us on social media. On behalf of everyone in this episode,
we wish you a good week, thanks for listening and we’ll talk to you next week.
Groong
Channels
●
Facebook
Group: Groong
- Armenian News Network
●
Facebook
Page: ANN
- Groong
●
YouTube: Armenian
News Network - Groong
●
Twitter: @groong
●
Telegram: Armenian News Network - Groong
●
Reddit: r/Groong
●
Instagram: ANNGroong
●
Website: Groong.org
●
Podcasts:
Apple, Google, Spotify, Amazon and more.
Search your preferred Podcast platform!
Subscribe and Listen to us on...
Keywords
Hrant Mikaelian, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia, Sergei Lavrov, Parukh, Armenian Opposition, Ishkhan
Saghatelyan, Kara McDonald, USA, State Department,
Ukraine, Ukraine Crisis, Ukraine War,