MPs in Yerevan Debate Whether Armenian President Kept His Promises or Not

The Partnership for Open Society Initiative and Mandate NGO today presented the third report in the framework of the project “Monitoring the Legislative Activity of Political Forces Represented in the National Assembly,” which monitored the legislative activities of political entities and individual deputies represented in parliament at the sixth and seventh sessions.

Participating in the event today were Transparency International Anti-Corruption Center Executive Director Varuzhan Hoktanyan, Mandate informative NGO representative Lusine Vasilyan, Director of the “PolitEconomy” research institute Andranik Tevanyan, media and information expert Mesrop Harutyunyan, education expert Serob Khachatryan, Prosperous Armenia (BHK) MP Vardan Postanjyan, Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun or ARF-D) MP Artsvik Minasyan, Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) MP Hovhannes Sahakyan and Heritage Party MP Styopa (Stepan) Safaryan.

During the event, Tevanyan spoke of “the unfulfilled promises of the authorities and the president of Armenia personally.”

“An annual 10% increase in investments was promised, but no such thing occurred; on the contrary, we’ve had a drop in this sector. The next promise, a 10% increase in non-agricultural employment; the fact is this promise hasn’t been fulfilled, and now everyone’s turned around and facing the villages and villages should be warned and think about this,” said Tevanyan, half-jokingly.

He concluded his speech by recalling Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan’s promises. “In 2008, the RA president for the first time made a speech in the National Assembly and made promises — in the coming months, the government is beginning to build a new nuclear power plant. We can judge for ourselves, has this been or not? Construction of the Iran-Armenia railway also hasn’t happened.”

“From what you presented I understood that our authorities, beginning from the president and ending with the smallest administrative structure, have done nothing good, if I don’t say in the universe, then at least in the territory of the Republic of Armenia, but such structure of speech assumes, Mr. Tevanyan, that it’s very difficult for you to see good things. You say certain things a part of which is real, while the remaining, significant part is under force majeure conditions,” said Vardan Postanjyan after Tevanyan concluded his speech.

In order to prevent this line of dialogue to go further, HHK MP Hovhannes Sahakyan intervened and asked participants to respect the format of the meeting. “Please make expert conclusions and announcements and not a political appraisal.”

“This was literally an expert speech,” responded Tevanyan.