Susanna Petrosyan, Yerevan. Exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza
An extra session of the National Council, which was initiated by the opposition to discuss a new pension system draft, failed because representatives of the parliamentary majority – fractions of the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) and The Rule of Law (RL) – didn’t show up on November 15th.
For the last 10 years the government has been developing a new kind of pension contributions – a stocking system which requires monthly contribution to the pension fund by citizens – 5% of their salary. According to representatives of the Ministry of Labour and Finances, the current pension system which makes equal everybody is nonviable, and if nothing is changed in the near future, taxes will be seriously increased. According to Premier Tigran Sarkisyan, amendments to the laws are aimed at reduction of a gap between pensions of different groups. It should be noted that an average pension will be increased by 15% from January 15th, 2014, while an average salary will be increased by 40% from July 1st.
But representatives of the opposition are against launching the new pension system, considering it unstable and having a lot of risks which are connected with labour market, worsening of the economic situation, and monopolization of economy. Moreover, six weeks ahead of the new system will be launched no stocking fund has been licensed by the Central Bank. According to the opposition, the delay can cause serious problems.
The opposition initiated an extra session for possible postponing of the draft for a year. But MPs from RPA and the coalitional party of The Rule of Law, who initially promised to take part in the session on November 15th, didn’t come to the parliament.
After the session’s failure the head of the RPA fraction, the vice-chairman of the RPA, Galsut Saakyan, stated that the fraction was ready to participate in the discussions, but it appeared that the opposition intended to touch on details of the document and make amendments to its content, representatives of the parliamentary majority decided not to take part in the session.
MPs from the opposition fractions were surprised with such unconfident behavior of the power which controls the government, the majority in the NC, the whole economic sphere, and so on. The opposition activists thought that the political majority showed disrespect to the Constitution and urged to stop launching the new pension system.
It is not the first case when representatives of the parliamentary majority ruin an extra session initiated by the opposition. Self-confident statements by the Republicans about their strength and invincibility of the current authorities are not confirmed in practice. Confirmation of power and strength of the ruling coalition should be its arguments on essential issues, including the pension reform, rather than using of well-known schemes of reproduction of power in all kinds of elections. The boycott of the extra session was another sign that the authorities ran out of arguments.
The difficult socio-economic situation which was formed in Armenia due to the authorities' patronage over the clan monopoly system not only deprives the country's rulers of a reasonable position on most of political, social, and economic problems and makes them vulnerable to criticism, but also encourages their inadequate steps, such as in the case of pension reform.
