NATIONAL ASSEMBLY CARRIES VIRUS OF CORRUPTION

Lragir.am
14:09:58 – 04/11/2008

The internal political immunity of Armenia is absolutely inadequate
to the external situation, and with the weak immunity stemming from
the internal inadequate situation, Armenia is unable to take serious
steps in the foreign political sphere. This is the opinion of the
director of the Akunk analytical center Ruben Hakobyan. He said this
on November 4 at the Pastark press club where he evaluated the current
phase in the settlement of the Karabakh conflict.

Ruben Hakobyan says in Armenia hardly anyone would disagree with
Serge Sargsyan that Armenia needs tolerance, rule of law, public
confidence and solidarity. Anyone who has a good sense would agree
to this, Ruben Hakobyan says. However, Hakobyan wonders what hinders
real steps in that direction.

He says when the society hears those words, the society has reason
to doubt them.

As a most crucial problem, Ruben Hakobyan names corruption and points
to two ways of battling it. According to him, one is the model of
Singapore where the government eradicated nepotism, launched genuine
struggle at all the levels of government, and soon Singapore turned
into a developing and modern country. The other way of battling
corruption, according to Ruben Hakobyan, is the model of the Russian
Tsar Nicolay II, who declared war on corruption but targeted the
medium rank of officials, which caused corruption to grow even
more. Ruben Hakobyan regrets to say that in Armenia the second way
has been chosen, when it is better not to fight at all then to fight
in the medium level, which causes corruption to grow.

Ruben Hakobyan stated that the National Assembly is number one source
of the virus of corruption with only some exceptions.

At the same time, Ruben Hakobyan stated that he does not doubt the
sincerity of Serge Sargsyan’s words about battling corruption. Hakobyan
said, however, that he does not know a single case when a person cut
his left hand with his right hand. The reporters said in that case it
turns out that Serge Sargsyan wishes one thing and does the opposite
thing. Ruben Hakobyan said he thinks Serge Sargsyan’s wish is sincere
but the wrong mechanism was chosen to fulfill it.