ARMENIAN SPEAKER FORCED TO REVIVE CONTROVERSIAL BILL
By Astghik Bedevian

Radio Free Europe, Czech Rep.
Oct 3 2005

Risking renewed friction with his government allies, parliament speaker
Artur Baghdasarian was forced on Monday to revive a controversial
bill that would partly compensate hundreds of thousands of Armenians
who lost their lifetime bank savings following the Soviet collapse.

The move came after Baghdasarian was again challenged by an opposition
lawmaker to honor a key campaign promise which helped his Orinats
Yerkir (Country of Law) party to do well in the last parliamentary
election.

The partial restoration of the savings, wiped out by the hyperinflation
of the early 1990s, was a major theme of Orinats Yerkir’s discourse
in the run-up to the 2003 vote. The pledge struck a chord with a
considerable part of Armenia’s electorate still reeling from the
post-Soviet economic collapse.

Baghdasarian and his party drafted last year a bill that calls for
$83 million in public funds to be paid to the former deposit holders
within the next ten years. But its passage by the National Assembly
was blocked by the government which argued that the modest sum
would make little difference and should instead be spent on social
programs. The government’s stance was endorsed by the World Bank and
the International Monetary Fund.

The issue came under renewed spotlight last December when a maverick
opposition parliamentarian, Hmayak Hovannisian, unexpectedly managed to
force a parliament debate on it after collecting a sufficient number
of signatures from fellow lawmakers, including those representing
Orinats Yerkir. However, Baghdasarian avoided putting his bill to the
vote after President Robert Kocharian set up an ad hoc commission of
government experts charged with looking into the problem.

The commission submitted a confidential report to Kocharian last
month. According to Armenian press reports, the authorities decided
not to make it public.

The confidentiality of the process led Hovannisian to press for
another parliament debate on the issue. Baghdasarian responded by
making sure that the Orinats Yerkir bill, co-sponsored by 36 lawmakers,
is included on the parliament agenda.

However, Galust Sahakian, the leader of the Armenian parliament’s
largest faction controlled by Prime Minister Andranik Markarian’s
Republican Party (HHK), indicated on Monday that the parliament
majority will block any discussion of the bill at least until the
government formally proposes its budget for next year. The draft
budget approved by ministers last week does not envisage any financial
compensation to the former deposit holders.

Sahakian made it clear that the HHK continues to believe that the
loss of the population’s Soviet-era savings was irreversible and
that Armenia is too poor to even partly restore them. “The savings
can not be the monopoly of any party. They belonged to the people,”
he told RFE/RL in a stern rebuke to Orinats Yerkir

Baghdasarian’s party is often accused of resorting to populism.

Still, its overt refusal to get the government to address the
contentious issue in one way or another would damage the ambitious
speaker’s credibility in the eyes of his supporters.