Emin Yeritsyan, President of the Union of Communities of Armenia, considers the resignations of a number of community leaders after the velvet revolution as “interference by the authorities”. He stated this at a press conference.
“If the community leader initially states that he will not resign but then resigns after all and there is no criminal case of embezzlement, it should be assessed as interference”, Mr. Yeritsyan explained his statement.
Emin Yeritsyan does not agree with statements that community leaders should resign after revolution. Moreover, he believes that generally it is dangerous, in particular, from the point of view of democracy: “Previously, for example, head of the provinces were also leaders of the province party. That is, it became a party system of the power. Today there is the same risk, if the relations between the government and local authorities are built according to old traditions”.
The revolution, according to him, needed to continue in the communities, in the sense that communities have stagnated over the past 10 years. Now, in the post-revolutionary period, according to him, the communities should be given freedom. According to Yeritsyan, the powers of the community leaders are limited by the Constitution of the parliamentary governing system, while the leaders have quite a lot of work to carry out after the revolution: “This creates a legal vacuum. We always voiced about this gap in the Constitution. Heads of provinces can no longer interfere in community issues, their functions are limited to local governance issues only”.
Another, no less serious challenge for community development according to Emin Yeritsyan is the issue of decentralization of finances: “92 percent of the public resources are spent by the central authorities, and as a result, local governments become dependent”, he explained his concern.
Emin Yeritsyan thinks that in general, after the formation of a new post-revolutionary government, the relations between the Local Self-government bodies and the government must be changed: “These political changes create great expectations: “Relations between the authorities and Local Self-government bodies should not be viewed as bureaucrat-executive relations, which dates back to the Soviet era, and was applied by the previous Armenian authorities”.
Nelly GRIGORYAN
