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ARMENIA: SEPARATE PROTESTS
Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
Aug 14 2013
14 August 2013 - 3:07pm
By Susanna Petrosyan, Yerevan. Exclusively for Vestnik Kavkaza
The Yerevan Council of Elders set up a new payment system for street
parking on August 1. One hour of parking on streets with red marking
and signs costs 100 drams, one day costs 500 drams, one week 1000
drams (about $3), a year 12,000 drams ($30). Free parking is only
allowed for 5 minutes. Exceeding this time will be punished with a
fine of 5,000 drams.
Besides the special areas, parking in Yerevan was 90% free. The city's
authorities plan to form 20,000 fee-based parking lots with security
cameras. The tender to organize the lots was won by Parking City
Service that will receive 70% of the sum paid by drivers parking their
vehicles. The program will improve the transport system, but such a
high share for the Parking City Service has cast public doubts on the
transparency of the deal. Some believe that the deal has a mechanism of
"bribes" for the local authorities.
According to some observers, if the mayor's office complies with a
distribution of income at a rate of 30 to 70 for the company, then the
Parking City Service must have something very powerful backing it up.
They even name ex-member of parliament Alexander Sargsyan, brother
of President Serzh Sargsyan.
To reflect the distrust towards the authorities, a new initiative
was formed on social networks, entitled "We will not pay for illegal
parking lots". Its members promised to combat the new initiative of
the mayor's office. "The decision on fee-based parking lots is illegal
and does not stem from public interests. Public territories should not
be handed over to a private company that gets 70% of its income from
parking lots. The private company acquired the data base of citizens
with cars, the company will make video records, fine Armenian citizens,
which is an outrageous violation of the Constitution of the country
and of human rights," the initiative says.
Recently, with the help of public initiatives, the decision of the
Yerevan Mayor's Office to increase fees for public transport by 50%
was halted. The struggle of young activists against unlawful ecological
projects was a success as well.
Such civil activism can only be welcomed, but the rising number
of protests, despite some achievements, have not turned into a mass
protest movement, although the country faces the needed socio-economic
situation to provoke such events.
In general, the processes in Armenia have taken a cyclical form:
- elections at a certain level based on various technologies to
reproduce the authorities
- protests of citizens against the elections
- the pointlessness of the struggle and the internal political
tranquility that follows, supplemented by countless promises to
improve the socio-economic situation that are not kept in most cases.
But the cycle remains incomplete, because the public outrage does not
turn into an adequate-scale protest. The civil outcries are local,
resulting in a partial solution of a problem, whether a natural
disaster or social hardships of separate groups of people etc.
Perhaps, the cause of the incomplete cycle is a result of
disappointment with lack of progress in the struggle. The social
moods may have been affected by the refusal of oppositionist leaders
Levon Ter-Petrosyan, head of the Armenian National Congress, and Gagik
Tsarukyan, head of the Prosperous Armenia Party, to run for president.
Another reason is the passivity of the opposition, a lack of systemic
recipes to fight, instead of separate protests against a certain
problem.
As long as this does not happen, people will have to find solutions
for the situation in the country themselves. One of them is migration.
According to the National Statistical Service, 1.017 million Armenians
left the country in January-June 2013 and only 922,000 arrived. The
negative balance totals 123,000, exceeding the figure of the previous
year by 30%. The negative balance will change as some migrants will
return from seasonal work. But at such rate, it can be predicted that
about 80,000 would emigrate from Armenia.
The emigration rate is growing catastrophically. According to data,
about 200,000 people have emigrated from Armenia in the last 3 years.
http://vestnikkavkaza.net/articles/society/43863.html
From: Baghdasarian
Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
Aug 14 2013
14 August 2013 - 3:07pm
By Susanna Petrosyan, Yerevan. Exclusively for Vestnik Kavkaza
The Yerevan Council of Elders set up a new payment system for street
parking on August 1. One hour of parking on streets with red marking
and signs costs 100 drams, one day costs 500 drams, one week 1000
drams (about $3), a year 12,000 drams ($30). Free parking is only
allowed for 5 minutes. Exceeding this time will be punished with a
fine of 5,000 drams.
Besides the special areas, parking in Yerevan was 90% free. The city's
authorities plan to form 20,000 fee-based parking lots with security
cameras. The tender to organize the lots was won by Parking City
Service that will receive 70% of the sum paid by drivers parking their
vehicles. The program will improve the transport system, but such a
high share for the Parking City Service has cast public doubts on the
transparency of the deal. Some believe that the deal has a mechanism of
"bribes" for the local authorities.
According to some observers, if the mayor's office complies with a
distribution of income at a rate of 30 to 70 for the company, then the
Parking City Service must have something very powerful backing it up.
They even name ex-member of parliament Alexander Sargsyan, brother
of President Serzh Sargsyan.
To reflect the distrust towards the authorities, a new initiative
was formed on social networks, entitled "We will not pay for illegal
parking lots". Its members promised to combat the new initiative of
the mayor's office. "The decision on fee-based parking lots is illegal
and does not stem from public interests. Public territories should not
be handed over to a private company that gets 70% of its income from
parking lots. The private company acquired the data base of citizens
with cars, the company will make video records, fine Armenian citizens,
which is an outrageous violation of the Constitution of the country
and of human rights," the initiative says.
Recently, with the help of public initiatives, the decision of the
Yerevan Mayor's Office to increase fees for public transport by 50%
was halted. The struggle of young activists against unlawful ecological
projects was a success as well.
Such civil activism can only be welcomed, but the rising number
of protests, despite some achievements, have not turned into a mass
protest movement, although the country faces the needed socio-economic
situation to provoke such events.
In general, the processes in Armenia have taken a cyclical form:
- elections at a certain level based on various technologies to
reproduce the authorities
- protests of citizens against the elections
- the pointlessness of the struggle and the internal political
tranquility that follows, supplemented by countless promises to
improve the socio-economic situation that are not kept in most cases.
But the cycle remains incomplete, because the public outrage does not
turn into an adequate-scale protest. The civil outcries are local,
resulting in a partial solution of a problem, whether a natural
disaster or social hardships of separate groups of people etc.
Perhaps, the cause of the incomplete cycle is a result of
disappointment with lack of progress in the struggle. The social
moods may have been affected by the refusal of oppositionist leaders
Levon Ter-Petrosyan, head of the Armenian National Congress, and Gagik
Tsarukyan, head of the Prosperous Armenia Party, to run for president.
Another reason is the passivity of the opposition, a lack of systemic
recipes to fight, instead of separate protests against a certain
problem.
As long as this does not happen, people will have to find solutions
for the situation in the country themselves. One of them is migration.
According to the National Statistical Service, 1.017 million Armenians
left the country in January-June 2013 and only 922,000 arrived. The
negative balance totals 123,000, exceeding the figure of the previous
year by 30%. The negative balance will change as some migrants will
return from seasonal work. But at such rate, it can be predicted that
about 80,000 would emigrate from Armenia.
The emigration rate is growing catastrophically. According to data,
about 200,000 people have emigrated from Armenia in the last 3 years.
http://vestnikkavkaza.net/articles/society/43863.html
From: Baghdasarian