Friday, August 5 2016 07:55

The Huffington Post has published an article covering the latest events in Yerevan where a group of armed Karabakh war veterans seized a police compound demanding among others the resignation of the president and release of the jailed oppositionist Jirayr Sefilyan. 

In her article titled "It's time for Armenia's leader to go" published with Huffington Post, activist, columnist, blogger Armine Sahakyan writes: "The bloody siege of a police station in Armenia is over, with President Serzh Sargsyan's administration prevailing against the station's 32 fringe-party occupiers. But the depth of public anger that surfaced in street demonstrations supporting the occupiers and in anti- government commentaries from political analysts and other thinkers indicates that most Armenians have lost faith in Sargsyan.  It's time for him to go." 

The author writes that Sargsyan tried to put the best face on the station occupation by addressing an assemblage of Armenian influentials (on August 1 - editor's note), but Armenians saw through the event as "a pitiful public relations ploy aimed at defusing grassroots anger."

"Underscoring the widespread feeling that Sargsyan's victory over the station occupiers was Pyrrhic was the news that Russian President Vladimir Putin has summoned him to Moscow for talks on August 10," the activist writes. In her words, the people have not forgotten that the last time that happened, in the fall of 2013, Putin ordered Sargsyan to drop Armenia's plan to join the European Union - or else - and join the Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union instead.

"That turn-about led to anti-government demonstrations from many of the Armenians who thought their country would be better off casting its fate with Europe instead of its old subjugator Russia.  So the meeting on August 10 with Putin must be filling Sargsyan with dread.

My guess is that Putin, who despises the color revolutions that sparked regime changes in Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan, will tell Sargysan that while he supports him remaining in office, Sargsyan needs to be ruthless in putting down the next challenge to his authority," she writes. 

In her words, Sargsyan's speech to the Armenian influentials on August 1 vacillated between conciliatory and threatening. "His most grandiose conciliatory pronouncement was a declaration that in the months to come he would be forming a national-unity government that would include representatives of all political persuasions," the columnist writes. She thinks another attempt at conciliation in Sargsyan's speech was his vow that Armenia would never agree to the loss of any land in Nagorno-Karabakh. 
"Armenians are angry with the excessive force that police used against the demonstrators who supported the occupiers, and against the journalists covering the protests. Authorities can't deny the allegations because much of the excessive force was caught on video.

Sargsyan didn't address the issue of force against the protesters. But he did apologize to the journalists who were injured after Reporters Without Borders condemned the violence. And Sargsyan said it wouldn't happen again. Many journalists probably rolled their eyes over that.  As for the threatening side of his speech, Sargsyan said the government would never again allow a violent protest to destabilize Armenian society.

The implication was clear: If there is another attempt, it will be snuffed out immediately, with overwhelming force and likely without regard for life," Armine Sahakyan writes. 
For conclusion, the columnist writes: "At this point, the president would do Armenians a tremendous favor by announcing his resignation, and laying out a succession time frame."