BETWEEN CONFIDENCE OF SYSTEM AND SUPPORT OF PUBLIC
James Hakobyan
Lragir
Oct 22 2007
Armenia
The recent meeting of the commission for fair economic competition
actually displayed clearly the mess inside the Armenian government
as the presidential election is drawing nearer. The commission which
discussed the rise in prices concluded that the soaring prices on
the market are not proportionate to the growth of prices on the
international market. Moreover, several companies were fined which
had boosted prices by an unfair competition arrangement. Certainly,
an ordinary consumer does not benefit anyway because the fined
companies make billions while the fine is not more than 300 million
drams. Besides, after paying the fine the prices not only remain high
but also continue to soar.
However, the problem is different. The point is that the prime minister
had earlier explained the rise of prices on the consumer market by
the rise of prices on the international market. Meanwhile, the fair
economic competition commission gave the contrary conclusion. It seems
incredible that the fair economic competition commission may have
exposed the mistake of the prime minister who seems to feel to be all
but president. After all, it is hardly possible that the commission
members do not track the news and are unaware of the prime minister’s
explanation. If they do not track the news and do not learn about the
prime minister’s patriotic activities, they will be punished twice:
once for exposing his mistake, twice for taking no interest in his
activities.
Generally, it is perhaps worthwhile to introduce a new routine
in the government. The staff of the ministries, commissions and
agencies should be asked to retell the content of media reports on
the previous day’s visits of Serge Sargsyan to their supervisor and
recite the thoughts of the prime minister to prevent such moral and
psychological cases during the day when the decisions and conclusions
of one link of the government contradict to the opinion and evaluations
of the prime minister, and to eliminate such likelihood early in the
morning before it becomes known to the public.
Otherwise, it turns out that there is a clear mess in the government,
and one is not aware of the other. In the meantime, it crashes the
whole advertising campaign of Serge Sargsyan on television. The
point is that even if the society starts having a positive attitude
toward the prime minister in parts, the administrative resource will
start to doubt whether he controls the state of things. If he does,
then how does some agency dare to refute the prime minister? It
means something is wrong, and in his efforts to earn the support of
the society Serge Sargsyan forgot about curbing the administrative
resource. In other words, he no longer controls the state of things,
and if he does not, the administrative resource no longer needs to
try to make him a president.
Meanwhile, it may have a dramatic turn because the government in
Armenia is shaped through the administrative resource rather than the
support of the society. Consequently, as soon as the society decided
to vote for him, no doubt he will not become a president for the
simple reason that Serge Sargsyan together with Robert Kocharyan and
their supporters have established an election system where the vote of
the public means nothing. Consequently, it is amazing that by moving
toward the public Serge Sargsyan dares to oppose to the system. The
system seems to have felt this by its instinct of self-preservation,
and perhaps the decision of the fair economic competition commission
is a warning, a yellow card that he cannot quit the system and walk
toward the public.
Serge Sargsyan who is now visiting the United States needs to come back
and assure the system that everything is OK, and he is not plotting
against the system. But in order to show that he keeps the things
under control the prime minister must make the commission responsible
for making him appear as unaware, or deceitful because if the rising
prices in Armenia have nothing to do with the rising prices on the
international market, it means either the commission made a wrong
conclusion, or the prime minister intentionally or unintentionally
misled the public that the soaring prices have nothing to do with
the prices on the international market.