A few days ago, Levon Zurabyan, the leader of the National Assembly Armenian National Congress (ANC) parliamentary group, without getting acquainted with the program of the Cabinet, stated that his group would vote against that document. Admittedly, it was an incautious statement not because the opposition has any grounds to vote for that program, but because it was a pretext for the Cabinet not to discuss that program with representatives of that political force, as opposed to other forces represented in the parliament. It surely was a pretext, not a serious reason, because the Cabinet sure of itself would certainly have invited the ANC and would have tried to convince that its program was so wonderful that only an enemy of the nation could vote against it. In reality, the only man in the Congress with whom the Cabinet doesn’t want to discuss economic issues is Hrant Bagratyan, because there is no such an expert either in the Cabinet, or in its surroundings. By the way, the governments of other countries, including Georgia and Ukraine, have turned to be smarter, using the abilities of that economist. Our approach is much more provincial – you are not from our “brotherhood,” so we don’t want to have anything to do with you.
As for the program itself, it really doesn’t fill with optimism. The preamble, which the Prime Minister voiced yesterday, mentions, as I understand it, the political conditions that are there at the moment. There are right points in that enumeration (for example, they have managed to considerably ease manifestations of political split and intolerance, to start negotiations with the European Union on establishing a deep and comprehensive free trade zone), however, not the Cabinet, but the President of the Republic of Armenia, as well as 6 political forces involved in the National Assembly, has done it. Economic promises, it seems to me, are rather sad – to double the minimum wage in 5 years, to reduce poverty by 8-10 percentage points, to create more than 100 thousand jobs, to increase birth rate to 1.8 etc. Experts would have their say, but such provisions of the program don’t encourage me for 3 reasons: 1. Why do I have to believe these promises, if the previous ones have not been fulfilled? 2. Even if these provisions are fulfilled, the socio-economic condition will not be improved dramatically, anyway; 3. In a few months, after the presidential election, regardless of who will be elected, we will have a new Cabinet. Therefore, this program can be perceived as an intermediate one.
And generally increasing the minimum wage to 70 thousand AMD reminds me of a fragment from a famous comedy, “I am sorry, man, I will help you in 5 years.”
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
