David Stepanyan, Yerevan. Exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza
People in Yerevan try to understand the reasons for the dismissal of Prime Minister Tigran Sarkisyan. President Serge Sargsyan accepted his resignation without explaining his decision, but stated that it was deeply intended. The mass media discusses tens of possible candidates. The main nominee is the speaker of the parliament, deputy chairman of the RPA Ovik Abramyan.
Several reasons for PM’s resignation are called. Two of them are the most popular. The first one is that Sarkisyan was dismissed in order to please Moscow which didn’t like him for his pro-Western views. The second one is that Sarkisyan’s resignation almost coincided with dismissals in governments of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan; that is thought to be a part of a common process managed by the Kremlin. Both variants are far away from the reality and seem to be nonsense.
As for a possible successor of Sarkisyan, we shouldn’t expect revolutionary changes in the policy and economy of Armenia. Considering the President’s statement that new faces will appear in the new Cabinet, there will be changes in methods of the government’s work. However, the position of PM in Armenia is technical, and we shouldn’t attach importance to the new Premier. In Yerevan decisions are made by one person in one office with participation of maximum 2-3 aides. So, the course providing interests of oligarchs will remain. There is no hope for a settlement of the main problem of the Armenian economy – the unity of politics and major business.
However, separation of business from politics remains the main problem which prevents development of the Armenian economy. Regarding the fact that the new Premier won’t get such a task, it seems he will have the same fate as Tigran Sarkisyan has. At the same time, stagnating economy demands an independent premier-economist who is able to make his own decisions. As there is no such a person in the ruling coalition, we don’t expect a miracle. The new head of the Cabinet will inevitable provide interests of the ruling political force.
According to the head of the Union of Manufacturers of Armenia, Vazgen Safaryan, in Armenia the government should be composed, not according to a principle of party belonging, but it should consists of professional managers like in Russia.
However, there is only one way to recovery of the economy: elimination of the tax pressure on small and medium business and population and filling the state budget with “shadow” revenues of oligarchs. Of course it hasn’t been done before, and the Armenian economy and population appeared in a crisis situation. The former Prime Minister didn’t touch monopolies, trying to avoid radical changes, filling the state budget with excise and other indirect taxes.
