Neither of politicians could interpret the announcement of the RA president’s advisor on corruption issues, Bagrat Esayan, saying that the implementation of anti-corruption policy may meet some obstacles, and one of these is not the coalition.
But before trying to understand what Mr. Esayan meant by this announcement, let’s try to find out what some MPs and politicians understand by this announcement. A parliamentarian during our conversation said, “Who have caught the hands and legs of the coalition, I mean the authorities, and doesn’t let them catch each other? What do you think? Do they want to make an imitation that they want to punish and meanwhile blame other people? It is clear and evident that corruption is in them and they can’t lie anyone.” As for MP representing the “Justice” alliance, Shavarsh Kocharyan, he said that he could only assume what Mr. Esayan had meant, “I can only assume that he meant oligarchs.” As for the head of “Heritage” party, Raffi Hovhannisyan, he advised Mr. Esayan to stop this and work as they should and start their work from the president’s office. “I am not informed about what Mr. Esayan spoke about. But I will be happy to see that they don’t only speak, but also work, and will be better of them to start their work from the very top, from the president’s office, and go down up to all medium and small corners of parties and governmental bodies. The most important thing is to apply the law in equal conditions for everyone”, said Raffi Hovhannisyan.
The most interesting thing was what Artashes Geghamyan said: he thinks that Mr. Esayan is afraid to say concrete names. “If Mr. Esayan manages to say “A”, he should be brave enough also to say “B”. He shouldn’t be afraid, he should be brave, the “National Unity” will protect him”.
But later it turned out that Bagrat Esayan had heard different estimations about the content of his announcement and was surprised about the way of thinking of our politicians, who couldn’t understand what he meant. For especially this kind of people he repeated what he had said and mentioned that declaring the property of physical persons could make controlling more effective. “It is impossible to apply any effective system of control until we apply a mechanism of declaring the income and property, source of those incomes of physical persons. Yes, everyone that has a state position and purchases property that seems to exceed his income has to declare his property and write about where he has got it from”, says Bagrat Esayan.
“According to the mentioned law only several thousand officials have to declare their property. But logically people wander how it happens that some MPs or deputy ministers have only one small apartment or a very old car. I meant this. I mean that until we don’t declare their property and what their relatives have, we can’t struggle against corruption effectively because the chain will be closed”, says Bagrat Esayan.
Regarding the announcements of some politicians that Bagrat Esayan should say the names of people and powers that are obstacle for struggling against corruption, Bagrat Esayan said, “What else can I say?” He said that he particularly meant the “People’s deputy” parliamentary group representatives. Answering to our note that the head of the mentioned group, Mr. Karapetyan said that he was not against it, but only thought that the mentioned process should be conducted slowly in order to have a society that is not corrupted, Mr. Esayan said, “I don’t agree with that, the society is ready for that, the only ones that are not ready for that are those people who haven’t hidden their property yet. But we have considered this fact too and have included provisions of conducting this process slowly in the draft presented to the parliament. I mean that starting from 2007 people that have income increasing 6 million dram will have to declare their property, and during the next five years this limit will be reduced to one million”. Answering to our question whether he didn’t think that their opinion that this draft was not brought up and was failed only because these 16 members didn’t vote for it was undermined, Bagrat Esayan said, “It has been spoken since 2003 that if the coalition is majority how it happens that some drafts are not brought up in the National Assembly. There are different mechanisms, but I think you know how it is done. There are a lot of businessmen in the National Assembly who either don’t attend the sessions or don’t visit the parliament at all”.