By Susanna Petrosyan, Yerevan. Exclusively for Vestnik Kavkaza
Armenian opposition parties Dashnaktsutyun, Armenian National Congress, Prosperous Armenia and the Heritage and the ‘I am Against’ civil initiative and young organizations started protests and marches against the accumulative pensions on January 18. About 6,000 people took part in the demonstration, police say.
The protesters demanded the Constitutional Court resist political pressure and make a decision that would favour the population, not interests of the ruling regime. On December 17, the four parties addressed the court concerning the pension law. They also requested obligatory contributions to pension funds to be stopped until the publication of the court’s decision.
The complainants are confident that the new law violates article 117 of the Constitution. The article states that volume of social support the government gives it people cannot be reduced on its own accords. Artsvik Minasyan of Dashnaktsutyun said that the funds that will be accumulated by pension funds will be partly allocated for circulation on foreign markets. Such economic step is very risky because the pension system would become dependent on foreign markets and any crisis would pulverize the money instantly.
The Constitutional Court will consider the request to scrap the law on January 25 and the complaint of the four fractions on March 28. Taking into account that the case provoked a mass public outrage, the Constitutional Court ordered hearings to be organized in an oral procedure.
Organizers of the protests confirmed commitment against the new pension system initiated only for the sake the government that seeks additional financial resources. Naira Zograbyan, Secretary of the prosperous Armenia Party, called the law on accumulative pensions state racketeering.
According to Levon Zurabyan, leader of the Armenian National Congress, the new law is not a reform, it is a robbery. “In the US and Europe, there are financial institutions and pension funds that gained the trust of citizens through many years of honest work. Can we trust the kleptocratic regime headed by two Sargsyans?” wonders Zurabyan.
The protests were concluded by a big march. It was the first political event this year and since autumn 2013. It became a reflection of the social grievance, on the other hand, it was a platform for a higher-level consolidation of political oppositionist forces and formation of a form of resistance together with the public.
A combination of a political and a civil struggle was seen at a march organized by the Armenian National Congress on December 10, the Human Rights Day. Another one was organized by parliamentary opposition and civil activists to protest against the unconstitutional law on accumulative pensions.
In other words, the law did not just become a factor for consolidation of opposition and civil initiatives into a form of struggle. It became a real opportunity to fight against adoption of the accumulative system into a political process.
