Susanna Petrosyan, Yerevan. Exclusively for VK
The regular congress of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) was almost immediately sharply criticized by the opposition in the form of the Armenian National Congress (ANC). On the day of the congress, which took place on March 10, the former prime minister, Hrant Bagratyan (1993-1996), subjected the part of the report dealing with economic issues prepared by the head of the RPA, President Serzh Sargsyan, to withering criticism. In an open letter the former prime minister criticised the failure of the economic issues in the report of Sargsyan and accused its authors of irresponsibility on the basis of official data. The Armenian opposition press supported the former premier and further elaborated the criticism. The economic observer for the "Haykakan Zhamanak" newspaper ("Armenian Times"), Hayk Gevorgyan, wondered how poverty had managed to reach the level of 35.8% against the background of increased pensions, allowances, salaries and new jobs, especially taking into consideration the fact that the government promised the poverty rate would not exceed 12%.
The response of the authorities in this regard was rather interesting. The government has decided for some reason not to make any comments on the criticism. However, Grant Bagratyan and other leading members of the ANC received attempted comments from the ruling party. Thus, the chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Science and Education, Artak Davtyan, agreed with the idea that the speech of Serzh Sargsyan did not correspond to the high economic level. At the same time, he stressed that one should not have expected a deep economic analysis from him at the forum. However, the opposition accuses the authors of the report not of an absence of deep economic analysis, but of providing fraudulent materials or simply lying.
The deputy speaker of the National Assembly of Armenia, Edward Sharmazanov, said that the opposition criticism of the authorities is ungrounded. According to him, the government, together with the president, have managed to implement a series of important democratic reforms in the last five years.
However, the opponents of the Republican Party have not limited themselves only to deconstructing the myth of the Armenian economic idyll. The slogan put forward by the Republican Party and President Serzh Sargsyan, "To Believe in Order to Change", was also targeted by the opposition.
"We can only counter Sargsyan's slogan with another: let us replace the authorities in order to believe in change," the ANC coordinator Levon Zurabyan said. Some politicians have called this the slogan of the opposition and went as far as to call it the plagiarized version of the pre-election slogan of US President Barack Obama. The republican deputy Manvel Badeyan, in his turn, rejected all the accusations.
However, it remains unclear why the Republican Party, in power for the last fourteen years, seeks to change the situation, or why it has created a situation that must be changed. According to some reports, the opposition also intends to provide an assessment of the policy issues in the above-mentioned report. It is possible that it will be voiced by the ANC leader Levon Ter-Petrosyan at the meeting on March 30.
The recent congress of the Republican Party once again clarified the situation. The problem of two entirely opposite poles – the Republican Party and radical opposition in the face of the ANC - has once again become acute. It is important to bear in mind that the ANC is a political force, which is present in the government. It is worth mentioning that the radical opposition led by Levon Ter-Petrossian includes two former prime ministers, Grant Bagratyan and Aram Sargsyan, as well as former power ministers – former ministers of defense, the interior and national security. In addition, ministers of health, tax, and a former military prosecutor have also joined the ANC. It is clear that all these people have actively contributed to the current political and socio-economic situation in Armenia.
The ANC has managed to become a serious "brain center", despite very limited financial and information resources. Its professionalism will pose certain problems even to the current ruling Republican Party. The last instance has clearly demonstrated this: the open letter of Bagratyan, which was an open challenge to the government, remained unanswered.
