The Prime Minister’s resignation was not a surprise for the NA “Prosperous Armenia” faction member Michael Melkumyan, so as for the ARF and ANC representatives. “We cannot say unexpected in terms to the specific day, but the fact that we were expecting the resignation, yes, because all programs failed, it was not in vain that we were not constantly saying that there is no economic growth, all indicators are bad, and so on… Basically, he made his conclusions. And now we believe that the change of the person is not a priority and essential, now it is important that there are processes going on around new program and new changes, which will bring the country out of this sad situation. In other words, if now we are going to change one person with another, it is not the subject. There should necessarily be a turnover change of the course, I repeat, turnover and not cosmetic. We need a change, which would include the changes of attitudes in the management of economic and social processes, in other words, we should find economic mechanisms to solve the problems of immigration and poverty, a rapid growth of productivity… in short, there must be a political will here, on one hand, and a unity of high level professional competence, on the other hand. Only this will bring to changes.” To our question of whether you consider it possible that when announcing about the news on Prime Minister’s resignation, the RPA Speaker Eduard Sharmazanov, in fact, did not rule out the possibility that the new prime minister might not be from RPA, the PAP MP responded, “When it comes to political will, high professional skills and major programs, we have always said and Mr. Tsarukyan has also stated in the Congress that one political party will be unable to take this country out of the situation, the issue of broad social and political consolidation still remains hyper-topical. And all that we say will be born right based on this consolidation, in other words, we should not look at the candidate, but the program and the consolidation in the first place, which will be crystallized and will give birth to this figure.”
Our next question referred to the steps of the opposition. The opposition was going to demand the government’s resignation, but the government made this move by itself. What remains for the opposition to do now? Michael Melkumyan remained reluctant to answer this question. “Let’s wait a bit, I do not want to comment on now, ok? The resignation happened a while ago. Let’s first see how the events will proceed. Maybe this will be followed by another unexpected move, perhaps another step will be taken now, you should not hurry now, let’s wait for the progress of events.” We asked the opinion of Mr. Melkumyan whether the authorities got scared of the opposition, or they also felt that it’s the end, and they are no longer in control of the situation. In response, the PAP MP said, “You know what; there was not one factor in the core of everything. They also see that people are leaving, 3-4 thousands stores are closed, there is no economic growth… the paces of such decline have become more rapid. If you look at the January and February figures, you will see a sharp decline… Should there be the one to give an answer…? However, I think, of course, that the questions and the fight of non-government forces should also have their decisive influence. Then, look, we criticized so long, we said what we wanted, but there had not been any single case when the government would come and say that we are not telling the truth, that they are properly working… surprisingly, they had never claimed that they are working by an efficient mode, hence, everything is in its logic.”
Melania BARSEGHYAN
