An old Soviet joke. One writes a letter to his relative residing abroad: “We cannot deal with these inflations, chicken already costs 5 rubles.” The letter reaches “KGB” where the author is called to, receiving a warning that no letters disgracing the Soviet rules are allowed to write. A few days onwards the same man writes a letter with the following content: “In the Soviet country everything is cheap. An elephant costs only 3 rubles, but why do I need elephant when I can add 2 more rubles and buy chicken.”
When in the Parliament they start to speak about prices, I always remember that anecdote and “National Democratic Union” member Davit Vardanyan’s question to President Levon Ter-Petrossian in 1993 – with the lowest salary it is possible to buy only 2 eggs, how should people live then? (We should say that 25 years ago populists were as “creative” as they are today.) Now we can ask – in winter people pay 50.000 drams monthly for gas and electricity combined, how to live with 150.000 drams?
When a taxi driver or an elderly pensioner raises such question, it is normal. When an MP gives the same question, it speaks of a certain level of mentality, which is far from professional quality. Or perhaps the issue is the laziness. I ask a political actor – how much influence will the diesel fuel inflation have on agricultural products? He answers – we should struggle and not allow for it to happen. He gives the mentioned answer inasmuch as he cannot or does not want to count what percent the price of the fuel amounts to, take, in the cost price of tomatoes. It is easy to say heartbreaking things in the air and it is difficult to get slightly deeper into the questions.
However, in Armenia the authorities are also populist, forasmuch as when you give the same question to the representatives of the government, they say – the inflation of the diesel fuel will have no influence on agricultural product cost price. That is, again “in the air”. And here is how they hold “parliamentary hearings” – not only by not listening to each other but also not listening to the voice of rationality.
The hearings, as much as I understand, should differ from the session of the National Assembly, where, naturally, the factions should express their political positioning. The hearings are a “brain attack”, where the main speech should be made by specialists. And when questions are given from “how should people live” field, in that “tone” specialists have nothing to do.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
