"AS LONG AS THERE IS KARABAKH, ARMENIA WILL NOT LIVE A GOOD LIFE"

The presidential elections in Armenia are over now. As was expected, the current president of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan, who gained 58.4 per cent of the vote, was declared the winner of the elections in the first round. The leader of the Heritage Party and former foreign minister, Raffi Hovannisyan, took second place with 36.7 per cent of the vote.

Theoretically and technically, Sargsyan has every reason to accept congratulations. But in reality, less than 60 per cent of the vote in the absence of real competition and against the background of mass fraud is clearly not the kind of victory that deserves publicity and praise, especially against the background of the rallies that Raffi Hovannisyan staged at Theatre Square in Yerevan in the early post-election days. He is certain: in fact, he is the one who won the elections. And all these circumstances, just as the election campaign in Armenia, give reason to believe that Sargsyan's second term will hardly be calm and serene.

He may even have a chance, presenting not very critical reviews from observers, to finally get a long-awaited financial loan from the European Union. But in reality, first, Brussels has long been demanding certainty from Armenia - is it going to join the Customs Union, or orient itself to the EU and its Eastern Partnership? Ambassadors of European countries accredited in Yerevan have spoken out clearly enough on this issue. The chances that Armenia will reject Russia's invitation to the Customs Union and explicitly state that it is not going to join it should not be overestimated. We should recall that in Armenia, Russia controls everything that can be controlled.

There are signs that the last hope of the Armenian economy - those same remittances from abroad, i.e. private transfers from abroad to relatives in Armenia - are running out. In particular, remittances from the US have fallen. "The American uncle is clearly pretending to be poor," the popular Yerevan newspaper Novoye Vremya said, trying to hide the embarrassment behind irony. Experts warn: according to conservative estimates, at least a third of families in Armenia live off external private transfers.

Loans and transfers, as they say in medicine, are "palliative remedies". They, of course, can bring temporary relief, but can hardly replace the "real" economy. And prospects for the resuscitation of the real economy in Armenia do not exist and are not expected - until relations with Azerbaijan and Turkey are normalized. Also, hopes for the opening of the Abkhaz section of the Georgian railway did not and could not come true.

Also, it must be noted that the once trouble-free method of campaigning - tough rhetoric on Karabakh - does not work in Armenia.

Hefty food for thought here is provided by the historical date that coincided with the peak of the election campaign - the 25th anniversary of the beginning of the so-called "Karabakh movement". Most likely, Serzh Sargsyan's team initially tried to make maximum use of this historic gift. But in reality, they had to give up especially pompous and grandiose events. The authors of the multiple "commemorative articles" from among participants or rather accomplices in that major political provocation were forced to recognize through clenched teeth: the younger generation in Armenia and especially in Karabakh no longer regards the Karabakh provocation as a "great achievement of the ancient long-suffering Armenian people". Some argue that you cannot blame the "movement" for all the negative things that happened in Armenia and with Armenia after it began, while others say through clenched teeth that fathers bear moral responsibility for not telling their sons about their glorious past at the appropriate level. Simply put, Armenians already seem disappointed in the actual results of the so-called "Karabakh movement". In fact, despite all the efforts of the Armenian lobby, Armenia failed to legitimize the results of its own aggression against Azerbaijan. And there is no hope that this can be done in the foreseeable future: today even Armenian analysts have to admit that the balance of power in the information war is turning against Yerevan. The rapidly deteriorating socioeconomic situation in Armenia provides citizens of this country with enough evidence that Levon Ter-Petrosyan, who warned: "As long as there is Karabakh, Armenia will not live a good life" knew what he was talking about.

Even a brief overview of the socioeconomic situation in the country leaves no doubt about this. It is notable that French journalist Piotr Smolar said in an article for the British Guardian Weekly: "The official campaign, which began on 21 January, is unlikely to cause a stir among the disillusioned electorate." The growing disillusionment with the results of the first presidential term of Serzh Sargsyan is confirmed by the sociological study "Quality of Life Index in Armenia in 2011" published by the press service of the government. According to the study, only 10.3 per cent of Armenian citizens believe that they objectively live well and are happy with their position, 3.3 per cent believe that they live well, but are dissatisfied with their situation, 49 per cent - live poorly, but have put up with it, and 39.4 per cent objectively live badly and are not happy with their situation.

Other results make it possible to judge the reasons for this widespread discontent. During the survey, about 15 per cent of schoolchildren in Armenia said they "sometimes" or "often" feel hungry because of the lack or absence of food at home.

And here we cannot but mention a "leak" from the WikiLeaks website. According to the website, American diplomat John Evans, whose career at the State Department ended because of his excessive sympathy for the "Armenian cause", stated: "We visited the slums of Vanadzor, where prostitutes work for bread and rice. The monstrous unemployment rate in Armenia is forcing many women into prostitution. Girls aged 11-12 are already engaged in prostitution." More and more parents send their minor girls to work in Turkey and the UAE. Meanwhile, the authorities do not see a problem in human trafficking. The Armenian prosecutor general says that the prostitutes interviewed by the diplomats lied to them, and quotes an old Armenian saying, which roughly means "God save us from the evil coming from prostitutes", the ambassador pointed out. "According to the prostitutes, the police and representatives of nongovernmental organizations of Vanadzor - the third largest city of Armenia - poverty and despair are the main causes of human trafficking in Armenia. Unemployment causes women to sell themselves in Armenia and abroad where you can earn more money, but also where they often do not get paid. A police officer said that sending their daughters to Turkey, parents are well aware of how their children earn the money they send home," the ambassador said in his dispatch. And this is not a decline of morals - this is the same poverty when most families simply do not care about moral principles.

Figures are even more eloquent. According to the State Migration Service, in 2011, 44,000 people left Armenia and never returned. That is to say every 12 minutes, one Armenian citizen leaves the country with a one-way ticket. The number of emigrants from the country in 2000-2011, according to the same service, is about 236,000, which is equal to the population of the country's second largest city - Gyumri. What is more, the most enterprising, educated and skilled people are leaving the country. Migration is called a "suitcase referendum" now. And it gives a lot more "information for reflection" than the official results of voting in plebiscites.

Apparently, the ongoing process of the transformation of social tensions in Armenia into an increasingly noticeable "Karabakh disappointment" makes people take a different view on the most high-profile event of the campaign - the attempt on the life of one of the Armenian presidential candidates and a dissident known in Soviet times, Paruyr Ayrikyan - the same man who was expelled from the Soviet Union in February 1988 and stripped of his Soviet citizenship after allegations that the Karabakh conflict was inflamed by the KGB.

Soon after gunshots were heard in Paruyr Ayrikyan's courtyard in late 31 January, he blamed the incident on the intelligence services of "third countries": "These are the forces that did everything possible to ensure that the Iran-Armenia gas pipeline is not complete, these are the forces that organized the massacre in Sumqayit and gave away Karabakh previously so that we do not have normal relations with our neighbours, it is the forces that made a deal with Ataturk." In December last year, Ayrikyan said: "We need to recognize that one of the active players in our political field is the powerful spy system of another state: the KGB agent network in Armenia was not eliminated, it was handed over to Russia... especially as the latter is not a democratic country, and we should not discard its interference in our affairs through the spy network existing in Armenia."

However, a week after the shooting, the law enforcement authorities reported the arrest of two suspects from among local petty criminals, for which they earned praise from the president of Armenia.

But at the same time, something different remains behind the scenes: since the so-called "Karabakh clan" came to power in Armenia, politics here has more and more often involved the use of criminal and terrorist methods. Today Armenians openly say that Serzh Sargsyan made a criminal coup in the country.

And now there is less and less doubt that Serzh Sargsyan's second term will be marked by the same processes that have occurred in Armenia over the last decade: from economic decline, poverty and mass migration to rampant crime and the introduction of terrorist methods into political life.