Expressions of protest against the nomination of former President Serzh Sargsyan as candidate for Armenian prime minister have a completely objective basis - the citizens are tired of the ineffective leadership of the Karabakh clan, which led the country into an economic, political and demographic impasse, former head of the Central Bank of Armenia Bagrat Asatryan said, speaking with a correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza.
"Ten years of Serzh Sargsyan's leadership have been unsuccessful, the republic's results in virtually all spheres were negative. The GDP in dollar terms decline, the national debt tripled and poverty level rose by several percent. But the most terrible result of this decade is the scale of population migration, we lost about 440 thousand people, and this is only official data," he pointed out.
"The only thing Sargsyan did was destroy the political field and prepare all the bases to ensure the continuation of his power. Several years ago, when he agreed on an allegedly constitutional reform, he said that he would not be nominated for any posts. Apparently, now he forgot about such promises, and his only goal is to remain in power," Bagrat Asatryan added.
But the sweep of competitors did not reduce the number of those dissatisfied with Sargsyan in Armenia. "We have practically no opposition left, but our young people came to the streets against Sargsyan, the movement of representatives of all universities of Yerevan is also protesting. This means that the protest wave will not stop in the coming days. And I would like to hope that the March 1, 2008 bloodshed will not happen again, when these terrible, illegal elections took place. Sargsyan appointed himself president and used violence against the protesters. No one has yet been punished for the crime against the people," the former head of the Armenian Central Bank recalled.
The expert expressed confidence that the power of the Karabakh clan is weakened now. "All these external challenges, the economic situation, unresolved consequences of the crisis prove each time that there is no real power in Armenia. There are a bunch of people who care about only two things - their personal enrichment and retention of power. During the 10 years of Sargsyan's presidency, none of the serious social and economic problems of the republic was solved. There are some changes in the economy, but in general negative tendencies prevail," Bagrat Asatryan said, adding that the majority of citizens are biased against Sargsyan.
"People hold mostly negative opinions of his reappointment as prime minister. They negatively evaluate the results of his activities. Everyone is unhappy with the social and economic situation, the criminogenic situation, corruption, which overlap each other and make life in the country even more difficult," he concluded.
