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“I would not say that the movement had died down, but it is ebbing, with both weather conditions and the holiday travel season having their impact on it,” information security expert Tigran Kocharyan said at a press conference today when referring to the movement against a rise in electricity tariffs in Armenia.

Commenting on media coverage of Yerevan rallies, Tigran Kocharyan said: “As regards the domestic media, I should note that no media outlet showed a negative attitude to the civic initiative ‘No to Plunder’ (editor: the initiative staged the first wave of protests against the power tariff hike). This is possibly the first time that the local media has been well disposed. In the foreign media, everything was much more complicated – some were constantly looking for a ‘Euromaidan’ here. They arrived specially for the purpose of covering the ‘Maidan’.

“Yet there were some people, some independent experts who managed to break the ice of that information flow and provide an objective coverage of what was going on,” T. Kocharyan said.

The civil process is over, the sit-in has also ended, and everyone has benefited more or less - the authorizes will subsidize the power tariffs until the completion of an audit, the expert noted.

When asked if the movement could gather momentum again, Tigran Kocharyan replied: “Everything depends on how transparent the audit will be and what changes will be made to tariffs”.

As was reported, President Serzh Sargsyan said at the June 27 consultation with officials responsible for the economic policy in Armenia that cancelling the decision on power tariff rise is “very dangerous”. For this reason the government will cover the tariff rise until the conclusion (of an audit of Electric Networks – editor), he said. “Of course, we will not pull out the ongoing programs or social expenditures, but will identify other resources among the means allotted for the further strengthening of (energy) security.

Certainly, our security issues are far from being solved, to say the least, and yet that environment of suspicion and distrust that we have now, I think is another security issue and a very important one. And that must be solved. And if that conclusion [of the audit] confirms the price increase is well-based, from that moment on the consumers will begin paying the new tariff without having any suspicions. Should the conclusion confirm the increase had been groundless, the government would take measures to get refunds from the ENA on the amount surcharged, as well as bring to account those officials that failed on their duties»,” the president said noting that under such conditions the work that the government started a few months ago to change the owner of ENA will become a certainty, and the option of returning the company to the state and transferring it for competitive management is not ruled out.