Political analyst Armen Badalyan addresses the issue of changes in the RA Law on “The Structure of the Government of Armenia” under debate at the National Assembly, which suggests a name change for a number of ministries. “The new prime minister has his own visions of the government and accordingly, forms the government structure. This is normal but we must note something that the name change does not result in the increased efficiency of activities of the ministries. When we were talking about the optimization of the government, they were also talks about the reduction and merging of some ministries, now we see that only the Ministry of Urban Development is turned into a Committee under the Government of Armenia, and the Ministry of Economy is eliminated, also the Ministry of Energy is renamed.
Generally, all this is typical of the management, the new prime minister because he not being a politician but being, as he says, a manager, it is more typical to a manager than to a style of a politician. As to how the government should be, it would derive from the true picture of the economy, the vector of state development and the tasks facing it. So far, the tasks set forth before him are not voiced, so we can now say that changes are taking place in the political superstructure, which are stemming from the prime minister’s vision,” – said political analyst Armen Badalyan to Aravot.am.
In response to our question of whether being a good manager or a good politician for the position of a government leader will promote the development of the economy, Mr. Badalyan replied, “Prime Minister should never be managers. It is another issue that the current prime minister is saying so now. Prime minister is a political position like the president’s and the minister’s. The government formation should have one team with an idea of what kind of country they want to build … when the Prime Minister announces that he is a manager, then the government on its own becomes an “ArmRusGazArd” or a “Gazprom-Armenia” Department.
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While these are governing bodies with different functions and different goals. Today, we see that it looks that the government is beginning to resemble a “Gazprom-Armenia” department session. The newly appointed ministers are also not politicians, which is fundamentally contrary to the essence of the formation of the government… we see completely the opposite, a person that is appointed from Russia a Prime Minister and considers himself a good and skilled manager, he brings not a political team but is trying to appoint ministers by the principle of being skilled, it is a principle of forming a shareholding or private entrepreneurial department.”
To our observation that the representatives of some political forces have already assessed the activities of the newly appointed prime minister, which kicked off with reprimanding the ministers, which was not fully accepted by the representatives of some political forces and began comparing it with a show.
To the question of whether you see elements of a show in the actions of the Prime Minister, Mr. Badalyan replied, “It is not called a show, it is called a PR … but it is not accidental that they are calling is a show because I repeat, the prime minister not being a politician but a manager, he pays more attention to the shortcomings of the management system. He does not show the direction of Armenia’s development but mainly focuses on the management matters. He is doing what a leader of an economic entity would do, who for instance would compel the staff of the enterprise under his administration to be more attentive to the submitted documents and to bring better documents. The Prime Minister is doing what he was formerly doing at the “Gazprom-Armenia”.
Arpine SIMONYAN
