WISHES AND CAPACITIES
by Armen Tsaturyan
Hayots Ashkharh
Jan 24 2008
Armenia
In addition to the start of the election campaign, election manifestos
of the nine presidential candidates come toprominence for such an
abundance of promises that cause frustration among ordinary people.
Of course any candidate has the right to make promises to the
electorate, but how much feasible and realistic arethose ones?
Finally, whoever is elected president on 19 February will have to take
into account several irrefutablerealities in the sphere of internal
and foreign politics. These are:
A) The existing balance of power in the Armenian parliament after
the parliamentary election of 2007 [with the rulingRepublican Party
of Armenia in the majority].
B) The arms proliferation imposed on us due to the existence of the
Nagornyy Karabakh conflict – Armenia cannot lagbehind in this.
C) Armenia’s political, economic and financial obligations in the
international sphere.
Two typical examples can be distinguished among the election
manifestos, the authors of which are ready to promiseeverything
driven by a wish to be liked by voters – [former Armenian President]
Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s "calmreflections" [reference to the headline of
Ter-Petrosyan’s election manifesto] and the masterpiece of [theleader
of the Orinats Yerkir Party and ex-Speaker] Artur Baghdasaryan who
has set a unique record by the abundance ofhis promises.
And this is not occasional, as these two are the most prominent for
neglecting the realities "in Armenia andaround it" or for presenting
"revolutionary formulas" in order to overcome those.
For instance – Ter-Petrosyan has drafted his manifesto given two major
"political pillars". He, on onehand, promises to destroy the existing
system, and, on the other, – to make serious steps towards establishing
"an atmosphere of tolerance and national unity" in the country starting
from the first days of his activity [as electedpresident]. It is
unclear how he is going to combine these two extremely contradicting
political principles.
Baghdasaryan has selected another methodology of creating the same
"populist cocktail". His electionmanifesto is thoroughly based on the
principle of promising the maximum. As a result of this exclaiming
contradictions, promises of political and economic character or
between opportunities of simultaneous reforms in separate spheres
aregiven in this document.
So, did the economists, who have drafted Baghdasaryan’s economic
programme, ever sit and seriously calculate howmuch financial resources
Armenia needs in the coming five years for a simultaneous and parallel
implementation of thefollowing two promises of the candidates:
a) To occupy a place among 30 leading countries of the world by
indices of high-tech industries, while establishingsuch kind of
economy, as is known, is the most expensive in the contemporary world.
B) To return 300,000 of our migrants to Armenia by 2012, when billions
of dollars are needed only for solving theissue of their housing –
not to say about the jobs and other needs.