“Business must be steadily separated from the government system and power.” Yesterday, President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan expressed this not only undoubted, but also absolutely topical idea. I perceive that the following way, combining an office with business, as well as politics with business must be forbidden by the law and be so condemnable at the society level that if in the future an MP’s main job turns out to be, for example, selling doors and windows, only the revelation of that fact will end that MP’s carrier. Or if a tax officer sells foodstuffs in “Fresh” supermarket chain, he will be compelled to make a choice either to use his talent in trade or in the area of compulsory contribution to state revenue.
Certainly, it is not realistic to start it right now. I mean, it is impossible to place a policeman outside the National Assembly immediately after that statement to send half of the MPs home, saying, “You don’t have anything to do here, because business and power, including legislative power, are separated from now on.” First those MPs will start to lie that they are not businessmen, they are shareholders etc. Especially when the man who is to place that policeman, the Chief of Police of the city of Yerevan claims with the same “sincerity” that “Moskvichka” supermarket chain is not his. Therefore they must first cover cracks in the legislature used by those officials and MPs. However, it is also not enough. One must create explicit and transparent mechanisms as to who and how will finance parties, in general and their pre-election campaigns, in particular. They had better do that publicly, after which they will impose regulations, by which those who finance the pro-government parties will not get privileges and those who support the oppositionists will not be persecuted. Moreover, officials must be paid such a salary that will guarantee their normal, respectable living. In that case, depriving them of business, we will not, merely theoretically, encourage them to take bribes.
Generally one cannot say that in any country of the world the state and government system are completely separated from business. In normal countries that intersection is just reduced to the minimum that doesn’t arouse social discontent.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
