"Yerevan Prospects"

Placido Domingo did not even know that his concert in the Armenian capital Yerevan would open bleak prospects before Yerevan officials. It is symbolic that the festival in which the world-renowned tenor performed was called "Yerevan Prospects". Although the issue is not about the concert, the Armenian media reports that it was a success. However, it was this concert that revealed the first signs of open confrontation within the ruling elite.

Before the concert, top officials managed, to put it mildly, to spoil each other's mood. An incident took place between the mayor of Yerevan, Gagik Beglaryan, and an employee of the Presidential Protocol Office, Aram Kandayan. According to the protocol, the mayor's wife is not supposed to occupy a chair next to the president, and when she was asked to change seats, the mayor could not hold back his emotions and assaulted the presidential protocol employee in response.

According to Arminfo, in connection with the conflict on 8 December, the mayor of Yerevan, Gagik Beglaryan, officially tendered his resignation. More specifically, he was asked to do so.

Following the Yerevan mayor, Justice Minister Gevorg Danielyan was sacked as well. He was dismissed from his post by the Armenian president for dereliction of duty. The reason for the dismissal was that Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan publicly asked the minister of justice to punish the head of the Service for Compulsory Execution of Judicial Acts, Migran Pogosyan, for improper treatment of his subordinates, and Danielyan ignored this order.

Of course, after that, one could agree with statements by a number of experts close to the Armenian authorities about a certain political line based on Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan's intolerance of permissiveness and impunity. But the subsequent dismissal of the chief accountant of the presidential administration, Anahit Zakaryan, for embezzlement of public funds means that these processes should be examined in a much deeper context.

Zhamanak newspaper, for example, described the latest resignations as a consequence of the conspiracy exposed by Serzh Sargsyan. In an article headlined "Robert Kocharyan and Serge Sargsyan on the warpath?", the newspaper writes that the Armenian leader had heard rumours about an imminent "palace coup" against him backed by the former President Robert Kocharyan. That's why Sargsyan began to fire those who he thought participated in this conspiracy. The newspaper notes that the resignation of the Yerevan mayor, Gagik Beglaryan, and the dismissal of Justice Minister Gevorg Danielyan are only the beginning of the purge.

Another Armenian newspaper Yerkir, citing its own sources, said that the next on the list of dismissals will be Speaker of Parliament Hovik Abrahamyan, several ministers and heads of security agencies.

Meanwhile, a senior official told Interfax on conditions of anonymity that the political and media circles of Armenia have split into two opposing camps.

"One small part is trying to defend the behaviour of Yerevan's former mayor, thereby justifying criminal approaches in public administration. The other part believes that such conduct is unacceptable and may become a precedent," the source explained.

This way or another, Sargsyan is going through the hardest days of his reign. And this is proved not only by high-profile scandals related to senior officials' resignations. The socioeconomic situation in Armenia is deplorable, and people are leaving the country in droves, as evidenced by official statistics. The situation is not very favourable for the authorities. And even if we assume that no-one was going to topple Sargsyan, the purge in the structure of the criminal government can be regarded as an attempt to save the falling ratings. The main lifesaver for Sargsyan under the current circumstances is the Nagornyy Karabakh problem which the Karabakh clan used to seize power in Armenia.

It is no accident that at the CSTO summit in Moscow, Sargsyan threatened to recognize the independence of the so-called "Nagornyy Karabakh Republic" if Azerbaijan decides to liberate its lands in a military way. But it should be noted that while the president of Armenia is making such "bold" statements, the parliament of his country does not dare to recognize Nagornyy

Karabakh. The parliamentary majority did not even turn up for the vote on the draft law "On the recognition of the independence of Nagornyy Karabakh", submitted by the opposition Heritage faction. Only 13 of the 131 Armenian deputies voted for the bill.

All this reaffirms that Sargsyan's externally opinionated statements on Nagornyy Karabakh are only designed to preserve the status quo in the conflict and, correspondingly, his own power. "Serzh Sargsyan's statement indicates that: A) he wants to continue the negotiations; B) he does not want and fears a war; C) he is not prepared to take any certain decisions, whether it is connected with the peace process or the recognition of Nagornyy Karabakh, which will totally disrupt the negotiation process. In essence, Serzh Sargsyan's statement is a hymn and an attempt to extend the existing status quo by any means. This status quo, in principle, leads to a slow death for Armenia itself, but also makes it possible to simultaneously prolong the existence of the regime of the Karabakhis who have seized power in Armenia," the Azerbaijani MP and analyst of our magazine, Rasim Musabayov, told the 1news agency.

Thus, the Armenian government is falling apart at the seams. It is not known how long the Karabakh clan will be able to stay in power in Armenia by delaying the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict settlement and with Sargsyan's brave statements. One thing is clear - the "Yerevan Prospects" of the Karabakh clan look quite bleak and disappointing.