Gor Abrahamyan, Advisor to the Prosecutor General of the Republic of Armenia, stated that during 2017, 34 criminal cases were initiated by the competent authorities of Armenia on the issue of offenses committed by community leaders. Seven community leaders were involved in 7 cases as defendants, four cases for the four community leaders were sent to the court with four indictments on four mayors; the two of them were convicted. This was followed by Serzh Sargsyan’s speech at the Local Self-Government meeting on community leaders’ abuse of position.
Political scientist Armen Grigoryan did not think that one could speak of fighting against corruption, only due to few cases. Speaking about the whole speech, he said that no one should rely on Serzh Sargsyan’s words. “There have been a lot of cases when Serzh Sargsyan’s words have not corresponded to reality. It is hard to find a justification for seriously taking his words. If you have followed his speeches since 2008, you can see that there were promises that have not been realized. For example, in 2013, after the elections, he announced that the government that would not manage to provide the country with 7 percent economic growth, might retire. In the same year, Tigran Sargsyan’s government had 4 percent political growth, but it did not retire. there are a lot of such examples.” Serzh Sargsyan also mentioned in his speech that in a few years we would reach the GDP of $ 10,000 per person, which Armen Sargsyan characterized as a fantasy genre statement.