Yerevan - The Armenian government on Thursday refused to reverse a controversial electricity price hike, sparking fresh anger among protesters and raising fears of political turmoil in the impoverished ex-Soviet nation.
On Wednesday evening, over 9,000 protesters flooded the capital Yerevan's main thoroughfare near the presidential palace, the latest in a series of protests over the authorities' failure to lift the landlocked South Caucasus nation of 3.2 million out of threadbare poverty.
Hundreds of protesters maintained their vigil on Thursday afternoon, blocking traffic, with more demonstrators expected to join them in the evening, said an AFP journalist at the scene.
Defying a call by protesters to reverse a decision to hike power prices by more than 16 percent from August, Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan said the authorities would proceed with the move to "ensure the country's energy security."
Abrahamyan said that raising the tariffs would only cost an average Armenian household some $3 (2.7 euros) per month, adding that the government would allocate over $5 million (some 4.5 million euros) in aid to the neediest families.
"Protesters won't achieve anything if they continue to block one of the city's main thoroughfares," he said.
The government's response to nearly a week of protests in a country where former master Russia owns some of the most prized assets including the power-distribution grid stirred fresh anger among demonstrators.
"The man must not get on people's nerves," one of the protesters, Vaginak Shushanyan, told AFP at the rally.
Others called the prime minister's words an "insult," saying the authorities risked galvanising the protest movement further if they kept turning a deaf ear to its demands.
"People will get angry and its social demands will become political," said 31-year-old IT specialist Hakob Balayan.
Anger has long simmered in Armenia over chronic poverty and corruption, and the government's decision to raise electricity tariffs proved the last straw.
The protests started on Friday and gained momentum after hundreds of riot police moved in early Tuesday to break up a rally using water cannon and attacked journalists, in the most serious confrontation between protesters and police in several years.
Washington, Brussels and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) all expressed concerns over the violence.
The hashtag #ElectricYerevan gained traction on Twitter, with supporters taking to social media to buttress the campaign.
Some in Russia expressed fears the protests could grow to resemble Ukraine's anti-government rallies that ousted a Moscow-backed government last year.
"Protests may not be anti-Russian but they're a threat to Russia simply for their democratic nature," tweeted researcher Karena Avedissian.
AFP
