ARMENIA: GETTING SERIOUS ABOUT CORRUPTION?
Marianna Grigoryan
EurasiaNet
July 11 2008
NY
Armenian leaders have pledged that they will wage an all-out fight
against corruption, but some observers doubt how far that fight can
actually go, and to what extent politics drives the campaign.
With the zeal of a revivalist preacher, Prime Minister Tigran Sarkisian
has declared that corruption is Armenia’s "number one problem that
obstructs all our reforms." Meanwhile, President Serzh Sargysan has
assured the public that his administration will wage a "transparent"
and continuous fight against graft.
To lend force to those pledges, in recent months a string of firings
has targeted the tax department, customs service and police.
On July 7, the head of Armenia’s police department for passports and
visas, Alvina Zakarian, was the latest official to be sacked. While no
explanations were given for the dismissal, analysts point to a June
26 statement by Prime Minister Sarkisian that targeted a "serious
problem" of bribery in the department. Bribe-takers in the country,
he added, number in "the thousands."
The official crackdown has been accompanied by changes in customs
regulations, as well as reported tax police inspections of companies
owned by pro-government businesspeople.
However, Armenia’s war on corruption has so far met with mixed
reactions.
The opposition, for one, argues that the measures to date are more
show than substance. "Personnel changes are not of a systemic nature,"
charged Suren Sureniants, a senior supporter of ex-President Levon
Ter-Petrosian. "The authorities are simply trying to show to the public
and the international community that they are doing something. However,
it is only formulaic."
Pollster Aharon Adibekian, head of the Sociometer Center, counters
that the government’s crackdown cannot be considered artificial.
"Pensioners, the unemployed, those with low-paid jobs are discontented
and most of them gave their votes to the opposition during the
election," Adibekian said. "But it is incorrect to say that the
authorities have started to create a show [to respond to those
concerns]. The anti-corruption program in Armenia in recent years
failed, and that is admitted also by the government … they are
trying to take real steps, which is a positive thing."
The government’s strategy for its 2008-2012 anti-corruption program
is still under development.
The late Prime Minister Andranik Margarian launched Armenia’s first
post-Soviet campaign against corruption in 2003. The initiative,
however, has been widely disparaged for being short on results.
Between 2003 and 2007, the annual corruption perception index
registered by anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International
showed no changes in Armenian perceptions of the presence of
corruption. The country’s 2007 rating (3.0 on a ten-point scale)
placed it in the neighborhood of Moldova, Algeria, Belize and the
Dominican Republic.
Amalia Kostanian, head of Transparency International’s Armenian branch,
believes that the government’s ongoing political standoff with the
opposition has prompted officials to try to convince skeptics that
it means to stamp out corruption once and for all this time. "Today,
we are not in quite a usual situation. It is a political crisis and
the issues raised by the opposition have created such a situation,"
said Kostanian.
Unlike in the past, she continued, the government now must really show
whether they have the will to fight corruption or not. "Mid-level
officials are arrested on graft charges. If there is bribery at
the mid-level, it proves that those above are also aware of that,"
Kostanian argued. "If only a few people are arrested and the struggle
is not ongoing, of course, it won’t lead to any good thing."
Going all the way, however, raises the question of whether the
government has the will to "sacrifice" to the campaign "ministers,
regional governors and higher level officials," she added.
Pollster Adibekian contends that the fact that the 2003 campaign led
to few results puts extra pressure on the government to get it right
this time.
"If the whole system is corrupt, which is the case, then orders and
decisions will not reach their targets and, in that case, there
can be no discussion about reforms," Adibekian said. "Therefore,
the authorities will do everything for the second stage of the
anti-corruption campaign to prove really effective."
But opposition leader Ter-Petrosian charges that the results to
date are less than impressive. "The government has indulged in empty
phraseology and the formation of Soviet-type commissions," he told
a July 4 Yerevan rally. "No large businessman," he declared, has yet
been charged with tax violations.
Meanwhile, pro-government political analyst Eduard Mamikonian
cautions that the spread of corruption under Ter-Petrosian’s own
1991-1998 presidency raises doubts about the opposition’s ability to
tackle the problem any better than the government. Armenia’s latest
anti-corruption crusade has just begun, he said.
"It is still early to give an evaluation [of the campaign],"
Mamikonian commented.
Editor’s Note: Marianna Grigoryan is a writer for the online
ArmeniaNow.com weekly in Yerevan.