zardneq !!!!!!

Yet, when I left and walked to meet some friends I saw him sitting at the cafe opposite the Republic party office.

So, either he left the meeting when it turned nasty or he didn’t witness anything at all.

Either way, he couldn’t have been where the action was for long, or at all, in fact.

As for Impeachment, Republic and New Times, I just don’t think they have enough support in society. Rallying several thousand people isn’t much if nobody else supports you and so far I haven’t heard many people say they do. Basically, they’re not even running for parliament. They’re trying to start a revolution on 13 May.

I’d say a peaceful democratic revolution but I can’t because it won’t be peaceful or democratic. It will be one minority group against another and I daresay it will be bloody. If they’re hoping for international sympathy they’re not going to get it. From day one they were preparing for revolution and not an election. They want regime change by any means and the ballot box is not an option for them.

On the other hand, if Heritage, National Unity and Orinats Yerkir were to get involved it becomes something different and perhaps more representative of society.

Well, apart from the many, many people who do say they will vote for Prosperous Armenia although I don’t suppose they’d take to the streets in Tsarukian’s defense either. Then the bickering will start and nobody will agree on anything and try to get the most for themselves and nothing would have changed at all.

Impeachment et all are a minority in the minority that is the population that even cares or thinks about this election. So, it will be a battle between one minority group (radical opposition) and another (government). That’s all. Well, with one exception, any post-election clashes run the risk of being very nasty indeed, and it’s something the three leaders — Pashinian, Sarkisyan and Karapetian — seem quite willing to risk.

The interesting thing to look at is what does this mean in the contxt of the elections. Imean everywhere in Armenian cyberspace (press, blogs, news, radio) yesterday’s events are buzzing with opinions. And there is no such thing as bad press, especially for the increasingly populist entity such as Impeachment. Overall, yesterday’s events seems to have benefitted Impeachment both in terms of number of ballots in their favour on May 12, and also in terms of how the events following May 13 will be viewed in public eye.

As an indicator of this shift we can just look to the BAROMETER of Armenian politics, who swings in all directions depending on where the oportunities await and gains are to be made — yes, of course I’m talking about Geghamyan. This famous oportunist swinger of Armenian political landscape has already made a stament that he intends to jump on Impeachments bandwaggon and cash in accordingly should Impeachment be as “successful” as yesterday once again. http://www.a1plus.am/en/?page=issue&iid=49012

As Observer said, and actually we were discussing this earlier at the Matenadaran an hour earlier, it seemed a clash was inevitable before the march started. Probably the opposition guys wanted something like this. Maybe they even needed it. Can’t say whether the police provoked anything as I didn’t see what started it. However, up until when it started I was under the impression that they were taken unawares.

When the Red Berets moved up along Nalbandian to try to cut off access to the NSS building it looked like they left the rear unguarded. I guessed that opposition supporters saw that and took the opportunity. Anyway, that was my initial assumption and what I thought must have happened, but I admit I was 15 or 20 meters further on up. All I can remember is sirens being sounded from behind me which alerted the Red Berets to run back down.

Even then, they were unsure what was going on and took something like 10 or 15 seconds to react.

I guess everybody knew there will be a fight after yesterday’s rally. It was going to serve as the last test to see just how serious both the government and opposition are about the revolutionary way of changing the government after the elections. We can see now, that the government, or Serge Sargsyan and the Republican party to be more correct, are determined to oppress any expression of revolutionism with the most cruel means. The article from Panarmenian below doesn’t talk about the brutality, with which special police forces beat protesters. Let me remind once again, that the organizers of the march had a permission from Yerevan Municipality to organize it. It was clear from the start, that the opposition are determined to pick up a fight, it was also obvious, that government had carefully planned this display of power – from what I read and hear – it was the police forces who provoked the fight in the first place. However, if Serge Sargsyan had planned to scare people, it doesn’t seem to have worked – people have just gotten more frustrated and determined to fight again.