“At any rate, I don’t have serious expectations from this Cabinet,” Armenak Chatinyan, the economic commentator of CivilNet, said during a conversation with www.aravot.am talking about the future economic policy of the newly-formed Cabinet. He noted that just a rotation took place in the economic cluster of the Cabinet, in particular. Therefore, the economic program of the Cabinet is the same and will be presented to the National Assembly with minor changes. That the Cabinet has remained almost the same, moreover, the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) minister has been replaced by the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) one is often described as a transformation of the Cabinet from 99-percent RPA one to 100-percent RPA one. Therefore, we inquired of Mr. Chatinyan whether the political monopoly didn’t harm the economic policy. He replied: “It doesn’t consist of the RPA alone; it is a coalition Cabinet, since there are also Rule of Law Party (RLP) ministers. And the opposition has never been represented in the government.”
Coming back to the problems existing in the economic field, the economic commentator stated: “There are a few priorities in Armenia; job creation and reduction of unemployment and poverty. The change of the economic structure – the switch from importing to local production – is a bigger issue. Some steps have been taken in that direction, but they were week and insignificant. Separation of business and government is a serious issue, for solving which no serious step has been taken. The reason is that those who are engaged in that same business are connected with the very officials and political elite.” Tatul Manaseryan, the director of the Alternative research center, said that we should demand action of the Cabinet and members of the Cabinet.
In response to our question whether the political monopoly would not harm the economic policy, T. Manaseryan said: “It was a result of the election; I don’t see anything unexpected or strange. It is a different matter how one can organize elections better. However, if we have a ruling party as a result, naturally, I haven’t seen the ruling party voluntarily share
power with other forces anywhere. Certainly, the economic policy may suffer. Generally, I think that serious problems should be solved in the opposition camp. The opposition as such hasn’t matured. We have bourgeois democratic opposition with few exceptions.
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“There are people among the opposition who are well-provided for and held rather high offices. And given this fact, I treat the opposition that struggles using those methods with reservations. At the end of the day, there should be serious reforms in the opposition camp, and opposition consisting of good, serious and professional figures is very useful for the country. Under these conditions, blaming only the government should be a thing of the past. The opposition cannot speak using obsolete and rotten methods; one should put an end to street talk and switch to action.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
