“If this government remains, it has adopted a neoliberal, as it is now customary to say, completely liberal, in a bad sense, policy towards the city of Yerevan, according to which everything that can be sold must be sold.
An unprecedented number of building permits were issued. That line will continue,” said Isabella Sargsyan, the guest of Aravot’s “Areresum” (“Confrontation”) program, representative of the Yerevan Heritage Protection Committee.
The other guest of the program, architect-urban planner Sarhat Petrosyan, commented on the data of the “GALLUP International Association” survey in response to the question: “For you, the position of the mayor of Yerevan is a political position or the position of the governor of Yerevan?”, 48.5% of the respondents – stated: manager, 41.5% – political position, said: “Work should be done in that direction to present what role the mayor of Yerevan can play. Because the mayors of Yerevan during the last ten years, with few exceptions (at the time of Karen Karapetyan and initially, very rarely in the case of Hayk Marutyan), we have had mayors acting as the head of the ЖЕК (Russian: ЖЕК: Жилищно-эксплуатационная контора – housing operation office – A.I.). And they mostly limited themselves to the issues of landscaping and repairing the roof, and no one has set themselves the task of making fundamental changes and will not do so now because we already see what is happening in the Yerevan Municipality after Hayk Marutyan. What happened before continues, community money is wasted for some populist steps, actions are taken that are not municipal functions at all, but these money are spent.” Later, as an example, he mentioned the improvement of yards, which should have been the problem of condominiums, not the community.
Isabella Sargsyan briefly formulated the problem. “I quote: the “suit sewn with Serzh Sargsyan’s clothes” is complete, with all powers, all related bodies, today it is worn by the ruling power. Now the elections in Yerevan are an opportunity to create a system of checks and balances in the city. Why do people say in those polls that the main issue is garbage collection, transport, etc.?
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Because of the general information background, the general propaganda, which is taken from different places, educates the voter and places him in that paradigm. I came here to say just this: this is a political process.
If we want to have a mechanism of checks and balances not only in Yerevan but in the country, it is essential; it would be perfect and beneficial for the whole country if the Mayor of Yerevan and the Council of Elders were from another political force or alliance of forces.”
Yerevan receives 60-70 percent subsidies from the state budget; specifically, the 2023 budget, which is approximately 272 million dollars, was 63 percent co-financed by the government. In response to the question of whether there will not be problems in the administration of the city in the case of an opposition mayor, Sarhat Petrosyan particularly recalled what was done in all those communities where the official candidate did not pass, in Vanadzor, Gyumri, etc. “I do not doubt that if any non-government candidate passes, there will be more such pressures. And at that time, the people of Yerevan should go and stand up for their vote one more time, and so on, until this field is cleared. And the deductions given to communities from the state budget are according to the law; at least 25-30 percent are given according to the law. The reason for the remaining increase in 2023 is mainly related to the pre-election period. That quickly, before the elections, they can show the number of buses, etc.”
Isabella Sargsyan emphasized that there should be clear political messages during the campaign. “Anyone who comes and says that I will bring a better bus than Avinyan, or I will plant a better tree than Avinyan, has no chance in this fight. There should be an obvious message to the population of Yerevan that you can change the course of the country’s development to some extent with this election.”
The entire conversation is in the video
Anna ISRAYELYAN
