While the political authorities fail to ensure progress in the country, Nikol Pashinyan is now targeting the judiciary in order to distract the public’s attention from the accumulating social and economic problems. If you recall, there was a time when the Prime Minister said the fact that the Republican Party of Armenia constituted the majority of the National Assembly was the evil that was hindering economic growth and investments.
Although there was no initiative of the government that the Republican Party of Armenia didn’t support, this didn’t stop the government from dissolving the parliament and forming a new one.
As a result, today, Nikol Pashinyan’s team has absolute majority in parliament, but there are still no investments. As a matter of fact, there are fewer investments.
However, it has been quite a while since the parliamentary elections, and investors should have been ‘breaking the doors’ of the economy in the revolutionary Armenia, but this isn’t the case.
Question: Why aren’t there any investments, if the parliament was to blame for the absence of investments?
Even back then it was clear that this was simply a pretext to dissolve the parliament and justify the absence of an investment boom. As is known, even before getting elected Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan would promise to ‘inundate’ the Armenian economy with investments.
A year has passed, and now the Prime Minister should indicate any significant investment project that has been launched in Armenia following shift of power. This isn’t about the projects that had been launched during the term of the former government. However, even in this case, Nikol Pashinyan’s administration doesn’t have any occasion to take pride because even the previously launched projects were suspended after shift of power.
And after all this, it’s no surprise that the incumbent government is constantly seeking people to blame in order to justify the absence of investments. It’s not by chance that Nikol Pashinyan is recalling investments when there has been an attack on the judiciary. “We can’t tolerate this situation because this is a matter of stability and normal life in the country and national security. This is also a matter of future economic growth because an unreliable judiciary is simply a hindrance to the improvement of the state of investments in the country.”
Interestingly, aren’t Nikol Pashinyan’s actions a hindrance to investments? Are those actions increasing investors’ confidence in the Armenian economy and in Armenia, for that matter?
The fact is that there’s no capital flowing into the economy, and there won’t be capital flowing into the economy so long as the government creates tension and instability in the country through its actions.
What is also important is the fact that all this poses serious risks for the intensification of capital outflow. There is already quite a large number of financial resources flowing out of Armenia. The political authorities’ actions aren’t helping suspend those processes and are adding fuel to the fire.
Let us remind that, on average, citizens take nearly $100,000,000 out of Armenia through the banking system every month alone, and there’s no doubt that the recent processes will accelerate capital outflow.
The past year showed that strengthening of power is the priority for the political authorities, not the economy or social conditions. In these conditions, the fact that more and more investors are losing confidence in the Armenian economy isn’t strange at all.
Of course, investments aren’t the only problem. It was clear that investors weren’t going to rush to Armenia, but it’s not like this is the only thing that concerns the government.
A long time was not necessary to become convinced that whatever the Prime Minister is saying — leaping economic growth, economic revolution, investment boom and construction boom — is far from the reality. On the contrary, the Armenian economy has faced rather serious difficulties. There is almost no growth in the real sector, and the country can’t go very far with trade and service. The economy was being transformed more actively before shift of power than after shift of power. As a result, Armenia is gradually losing its positions in the global markets. Despite the declared policy on promoting exports and replacing imports with exports, to this day, the government hasn’t taken any visible step in those directions. It’s no surprise that the country’s foreign trade balance is worsening more and more.
It’s obvious that there’s no sense in talking about inclusive economic growth, which the government was talking so much about in the initial period following shift of power. People feel the impact of economic growth on their own incomes as much as they used to before shift of power.
It’s not by chance that the social conditions are not improving the way they should have been improving after the revolution, and there’s actually regression. No matter how much the Prime Minister declares that Armenia has created 50-51,000 new jobs following shift of power, unemployment will still be high, and people won’t be provided with jobs. People want to see real achievements, not theoretical achievements, but there are no real achievements.
In essence, the government’s current objective is to buy time. A couple of months ago, the government succeeded in doing this through dissolution of the National Assembly. Now it’s the judiciary’s turn. This might help keep the public occupied for a couple of more months, but it won’t change the economic situation and people’s lives. The time to demand real outcomes is approaching.
HAKOB KOCHARYAN