SLUSH FUNDS ARE BEING RAISED
James Hakobyan
Lragir, Armenia
Oct 1 2007
The Armenian economy is going through a recurrent stage of a total
rise of prices. Almost everything is getting considerably expensive.
Logically, in this period when less than 5 months are left until the
presidential election, the rise of prices does not seem logical because
it might cause social protests. In reality, however, a thought-out and
calculated combination has been launched. Everyone knows that almost
all the branches of the Armenian economy are monopolized. In other
words, the economy is divided among a few major businessmen. These
businessmen also have to cover the costs of the election campaign of
the government’s candidates. The peculiarity of the current period is
that the presidential election is held a very short period past the
parliamentary election. Meanwhile, in the parliamentary election those
businessmen spent both on the government and for their own election
purposes. In other words, they spent tens or even one hundred million
dollars when a few months later they again have to spend. Meanwhile,
they now have hardly a few months to get that money back and accumulate
more for new costs. In other words, now the consumers are squeezed
twice, for the past and the future. This squeezing will last until
December because in January the contrary order will be given to the
market – to cut the prices.
When the pre-election fund of the government will have been accrued,
and the government will be set on the populist mode. Something
similar took place last year. An unjustified and illogical rise in
prices in December, which the fair economic competition committee
suddenly started to attend to in January. The prices were made stable
in January and were even pushed down. However, the major businesses
had already accumulated slush funds by that time.
Most probably, the same scenario is being performed now. The businesses
will be accumulating until New Year. After New Year the fair economic
competition commission will wake up. And naturally the government’s
candidate will wake it up, most probably Serge Sargsyan, who will
probably voice concern regarding the rise of prices, and will say it
is necessary to make efforts to define and prevent the unjustified
tendency of the rise of prices. These efforts will be taken right away,
and the prices will go down four to six weeks before the presidential
election, considering that the consumers who will become voters in
six weeks will appreciate the government’s effort. In addition, the
same will probably happen to the exchange rate of the dollar. It will
probably start going down towards New Year, and after New Year the
dollar will start revaluating when the oligarchs will have collected
so much cheap dollars from people that it will be enough o hold two
presidential elections. As to what will happen to prices during the
four years following the presidential election, it should not be even
tried to imagine now, not to shatter the country’s demography.