Optimization is a good thing only if it does not have political party motives, the way it happened to the committees of NA. If it were 8, then RPA would get 5 presidential positions instead of the 6 one that they have. If it were 10, then ‘Yelq’ would get one position in a committee. Therefore, the optimal number is 9, so that RPA gets the maximum and ‘Yelq’ does not get anything. Here is all the arithmetic. The rest of the ‘state-building’ and ‘historical-philosophical’ explanations are just mind-trainings. Of course, nothing ‘terrible’ would have happened if the number of RPA presidents of committees was 5, or if suddenly a representative of ‘Yelq’ became a president of a parliamentary committee. The basis of the ruling party would definitely not be in danger, but here we don’t have political logic, instead, we have ‘we are not that kind of people’ one.
Now the question of government “optimization” arises. Here everything is more secretive: the nudging happens ‘under the carpet’. They will inform us about the results with relevant justifications. The structure of government has changed so much and with such reasoning that nothing can surprise us anymore. It was obvious that the Ministry of Finance couldn’t have been united with the tax and customs services. But then they had to give supervision to Gagik Khachatryan, who is one of our ‘most influential’ oligarchs. And vice versa: the ministries of Territorial Administration and Emergency Situations could have remained merged, but because they needed to have room for ‘Dashnaktsutyun’, they separated those sectors.
We can also suppose why the post of ‘the head of the governmental staff’ will turn from political to contemplative: David Harutyunyan will be appointed to another position, and his post will be given to a more ordinary official. But if they need to appoint someone to a position, then the work of the head of the staff will be of a great political significance. A classic example of this is the post of the secretary of the National Security Council. In the beginning, it seemed like it had a crucial importance for the country. That was in 2008 when Arthur Baghdasaryan decided to join the government after the elections. But then, when the president of the ‘Rule of Law’ party quitted that job, the position stayed unoccupied for a long time, and now it’s also vacant after Yuri Khachaturov being appointed to the post of the secretary of CSTO. That post also can probably be optimized.
Aram Abrahamyan
