The Armenian government on Thursday refused to reverse a controversial electricity price hike, sparking fresh anger among thousands of demonstrators who have rallied in the capital for a week. Under pouring rain, some 7,000 protesters rallied Thursday evening near the presidential palace after Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan said his government would proceed with raising power tariffs despite anger in a country already hard hit by the economic crisis in Russia.
Waving national flags, singing patriotic songs and chanting "We will win!", protesters vowed to keep pressuring the government until their demands are met, an AFP journalist at the scene said. Earlier Thursday, hundreds of protesters blocked traffic on the capital Yerevan's main thoroughfare, while over 9,000 protesters had rallied late Wednesday near the presidential palace.
Anger has long simmered in Armenia over poverty and corruption, but the government's decision to raise electricity tariffs by more than 16 percent from August in the country of 3.2 million proved the last straw. President Serzh Sarkisian, who is on a visit to Brussels, has so far made no public comment, but Abrahamyan said the authorities would raise the tariffs to "ensure the country's energy security."
He said the planned hike is aimed at avoiding "cyclic power cut-offs which will lead to irreparable consequences for the country's economy." Abrahamyan insisted the increase would only cost an average household some $3 (2.7 euros) per month, with the government pledging to allocate over $5 million (some 4.5 million euros) in aid to the neediest families. But the government's response stirred fresh anger after a week of protests in a country where former master Russia controls some of the most prized assets including the power-distribution grid. "The man must not get on people's nerves," protester 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 their social demands will become political," 31-year-old IT specialist Hakob Balayan said. Armenia's cash-strapped power distribution company said the hike was needed due to a sharp devaluation of the national currency, the dram.
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