In order to find out what influence Russia has on the elections in Armenia, First News and Analyses talked to renowned Russian experts. Sergey Markedonov, who lives in Washington, informed “Zhamanak” that Russia’s influence on the country’s intrastate political developments is not direct. Although the indirect influence does exist but not to the degree that Armenia cannot function politically independent.
Markedonov also states that the statement about PAP being Russia’s favorite political power is baseless since they have cooperated with Serzh Sargsyan very successfully and did not have major splits in opinions in most questions. Russia increased its military bases during Sargsyan’s presidency. Markedonov rejects the views that there are any pro-Russian political powers in post-Soviet countries. He brought the example of Georgia’s new head of the government Ivanishvili and Yanukovich. He stated that Ivanishvili stated he would restore Russian-Georgian relations which never implied ceasing cooperation with NATO. So will do Armenia. In case PAP comes to power, it will not stop NATO-Armenia cooperation. PAP, as Markedonov states showed its political potential during the parliamentary elections, which marked the party has a candidate apt to struggle for the upcoming presidential elections.
Another Russian expert and the president of the scientific union of experts on Caucasian studies, Alexander Krilov told First News and Analyses that in contradiction to its Eastern partners, Russia thinks no other exogenous power must affect a country’s internal politics. Thus Russia will not show any support to any political power in Armenia since the most important factor determining the stream of the political life in a country is the people’s voice. The expert also mentioned that if there is an outside appointment of an official, it speaks of the lack of society’s maturity and the country’s dependence which allows external powers to intervene. According to Krilov, it is very dangerous to label a political power either pro-Russian or pro-American and that it would be better to evade naming political powers like that.
