Guest post: Liana Enli Manusajyan – The Youth-Lead Velvet Revolution in Armenia – UPDATE

The month of April is always bringing change in Armenian history…

2018 seems to be not ordinary for Armenia. Everything started with a change in the Constitution, as the result of which Armenia became a parliamentarian republic, the Prime Minister got all power to rule the country.

After a new President was nominated, our ex-President, Serj Sargisyan, wanted to take again all power in his hands, by becoming Prime Minister, since he was not eligible to become President again (according to the Armenian Constitution, the same person can be elected as a President only two times). Serj Sargisyan had been a President of the country for ten years already. Thus, no legal grounds for him to become a President again. For this reason, he changed the Constitution, so that from now on the President will be nominated by the Parliament, rather than elected directly by people, and that all executive power is being transferred into the hands of the Prime Minister. According to him, politically, Armenia entered a new age.

After this Constitutional change, people, but especially the youth of Armenia, became worried about future of their country, because they saw many risks involved by these changes. The economic situation in Armenia was very difficult, and the country had a lot of debt, following the decisions made by the ex-president, Serj Sargisyan.

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Liana Enli Manusajyan About ‘Electric Yerevan’ – An Interview

Liana Enli Manusajyan

During my trip to Armenia, that I have just finished, I had the privilege of meeting Liana Manusajyan, a young human rights lawyer, who is also a member of the Advisory Council of World Vision Armenia.

During our short meeting we were able to talk about the recent peaceful demonstrations in Yerevan, Liana being one of the organisers. She has the kindness of responding to a few questions and allowed me to publish here her answers. Here is the short interview.

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DM – Armenia is, for me, a paradoxical country. Armenians are smart, industrious and well educated people. However, Armenia, to a certain extent like my own country, Romania, is a poor country. How do you explain this paradox?

LEM – The reason of our paradox is monopolization of fields. No competition. Everything is centralizes in the hands of few people who don’t allow the competition.

DM – Because of its geographic location, of complex historical circumstances and the decision of its leaders in the last two decades, Armenia is under the spell of Putin Russian empire. Along the years I have been surprised by the level of acceptance that Armenians have of this political and economic dependence of the ‘Bi+g Bear’. Am I right? And, if so, why do you think this is the case?

LEM –  You are right. The thing is that Russia wants to have control over economy and politics in Armenia. We have economical dependence on Russia and till we won’t find other alternatives to escape that economical dependence we should somehow take them into account.