Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has repeatedly misled the Armenian public by making false promises since coming to power in 2018.
To preserve his seat, Pashinyan has used three ploys:
1) Promise the gullible people a rosy future using the slogan, “There is a future” (abaka ga);
2) Exploit the naïve public’s blind trust by making false promises;
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3) Blame all his errors and the country’s current problems on former leaders, even though he has been in charge for eight years.
Whenever anyone points out his mistakes and deceitful promises, Pashinyan either denies ever making such statements or dodges the question. His excuse is that, since the people elected him, he can do whatever he wants, even though he never told his electors that he would hand over Artsakh to Azerbaijan and relinquish part of Armenia’s territories to the enemy state.
Since the parliamentary elections are scheduled to take place on June 7, Pashinyan is once again busy misleading the public. He and his ministers exaggerate their accomplishments, and act as if Armenia did not exist before 2018, when they came to power.
In order to fool the public, Pashinyan described in 2020 what his imaginary Armenia would look like in 2050, knowing full well that neither he nor his political party will be around by then. He called the plan “A Development Strategy for Armenia until 2050.”
His plan for 2050 is no different from many of his other fake promises. According to the well-known saying, “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” Armenia’s citizens must finally wake up and realize that they are being deceived repeatedly by their incompetent but cunning leader.
Here is the list of Pashinyan’s 18 unrealistic goals to be accomplished by 2050:
• Increase Armenia’s population to at least five million.
• Create 1.5 million jobs.
• Overcome poverty through work.
• Increase Armenia’s GDP 20-fold.
• Increase the average salary seven-fold.
• Make a healthy lifestyle a national chracteristic; increase life expectancy to 90 years.
• Have the world’s most combat-ready army per capita.
• Have one of the 10 most efficient intelligence services in the world.
• Make learning a national way of life.
• Have at least three universities among the world’s top 200 ranked universities.
• Turn Armenia into a high-tech industrial country.
• Have at least five high-tech companies valued at $10 billion or more and at least 10,000 operating startups.
• Ensure a healthy environment; make Armenia climate-resilient and energy-efficient.
• Double Armenia’s forested areas.
• Win 25 Olympic gold medals.
• Make the Armenian national football team the winner of the European and/or World Championship.
• Win the title of world individual chess champion.
• Increase to 15 million the annual number of tourists visiting Armenia.
Many of these 18 goals are unattainable. Six years after Pashinyan’s announcement, there has been hardly any progress. Even though there is nothing wrong with having personal or national goals, to achieve them one needs to take the following steps:
1) Set realistic goals with a reasonable chance of success. Rather than getting up on a stage and saying whatever comes to mind, there needs to be an in-depth study before making haphazard public announcements.
2) Ask experts to develop a detailed, realistic, and achievable plan of action. The head of government must first consult specialists in various fields to develop a roadmap for getting the country from here to there.
3) Provide a timeline and incremental milestones. It is not enough to state what you want to achieve by 2050. The government must have a detailed plan that specifies actions to be taken each year until 2050.
4) Include the public in setting national priorities. The Prime Minister should not ignore the will of the people and singlehandedly decide what is best for citizens. He should organize local conferences in each region to ask the public what they would like to see accomplished by 2050. The government should also conduct public polls to obtain reliable data about citizens’ interests.
5) Most importantly, ensure competent leadership now. Before worrying about 2050 — or even 2026 — the country must have a competent leader. Armenia’s citizens have the opportunity in this June’s parliamentary elections to decide who can best lead the country now. Otherwise, they may not have a country by 2050.