YEREVAN. – After the events on March 1, 2008, great changes have taken place in Armenia’s political arena.

Caucasus Institute Director, political scientist Alexander Iskandaryan, said the abovementioned at a press conference on Tuesday.

“Today, the opposition forces are also represented in the National Assembly, albeit their ‘voice’ is not decisive,” Iskandaryan noted. “And the RPA [i.e. the ruling Republican Party of Armenia] members have taken the entire political arena [of the country] into their hands. (…) This [political] party feels pretty confident, since no one opposes it.”

In the analyst’s view, the Armenian society has become more is paralyzed over the course of these past eight years, and the societal problems have increased in the country.

“The society feels itself detached from politics,” Alexander Iskandaryan added.

Eight years have passed since the tragic events in capital city Yerevan, and which claimed ten lives.

The Armenian opposition did not recognize the official results of the presidential election of February 19, 2008.  On February 21, then opposition leader, First President Levon Ter-Petrosyan, started a round-the-clock rally at Liberty Square, and several thousands of people took part in marches demanding to cancel the official election results.  

In the morning of  March 1, however, the police forcibly dispersed the “tent camp” at the square, this being ensued by mass arrests of opposition activists.

But close to the midday, a great number of opposition supporters gathered near Myasnikyan Statue in the downtown. They began to build barricades expecting the second-force operation of the authorities.

At 9pm, the operation on the forcible dispersal of the multi-thousand rally was launched. Consequently, eight demonstrators and two servicemen of the Internal Troops died.

As a result, then-President Robert Kocharyan declared a 20-day state of emergency in Yerevan.

To this day, no one has been held accountable for the ten deaths.