If you were thinking the Velvet Revolution was a colorful movement, the post-revolution period has become even more so. One can consider the situation entertaining if it were not so alarming.
The leader of the Velvet Revolution, Nikol Pashinyan, had been vowing all along that there would not be vendettas or a score-settling with the members of the previous administration, but the recent investigations and revelations are so dramatic that the public is becoming irate.
Almost two decades of lawlessness, looting, corruption and utter indifference toward public welfare have taken the country to the brink of a breaking point. As a result of those abuses of public funds, there has been a steady depopulation of Armenia. Through criminal negligence, this process has amounted to an existential threat to the country.
Although people in Armenia are enjoying the freedom brought on by the revolution, at the same time, they are enraged as security forces make new revelations and new arrests.
By some estimates, during the last two decades, the loss for Armenia’s economy has amounted to $30 billion, while the country’s foreign debt has reached $7.5 billion.
In a country where the majority of the people subsist under the poverty line, former President Robert Kocharyan’s family assets are estimated to be more than $10 billion.