The recent processes can be considered another attempt by the Central Bank to “occupy” the government. The first attack, which has been forgotten by many people, happened ten years ago. One of the young leaders of the Central Bank, Armen Darbinyan was appointed prime minister in 1998. His government of pretender “professionals” stayed in the minds of people with the name of the most famous chocolate of those times – “kinder surprise.” In about six months the young prime minister used most of his time to be involved in politics than to manage the economy. In about one year Armen Darbinyan “left” the political field. The political party established by him did not enter the parliament. The official statistics observed degradation almost in all fields during Dabrinyan’s office. The consequences of this degradation (due to different reasons) were seen during the consecutive two years as well. It means that the first attempt to “occupy” the government was failed. Many experts are explaining this fact with the reason that during a long time after being appointed in the government Armen Darbinyan was still representing the interests of the Central Bank. As for the interests of these two institutions, often these interests may fall in contradiction. During the period of building the institutions of the Central Bank and the laws regulating the activities of the newly independent Armenia’s Central Bank, the founding president of the Central Bank Isahak Isahakyan petitioned the parliament not to let the Central Bank be accountable to the government. The factual explanation of this reason was very credible. It was also funny. “Letting the CB (i.e. the institution which is issuing and controlling money in circulation) be accountable to the government is the same as entrusting an alcohol depot to an alcoholic.” The future developments showed that the Armenian government was tending to spend more than it could have. Almost all annual budgets of Armenia had huge deficits. The independent CB periodically could resist the will of the government to waste money by all means. All the presidents of the CB had their contribution in that job. In order not to be accused in unjustified good attitude to the CB let’s mention that the CB’s budget had big deficit as well and resulted in increasing the foreign debt of the country. (Now the Central Bank’s debt is about $180 million). The second attack of the CB to the government, which has happened just recently, is more serious. First, the new prime minister is the former president of the CB. Tigran Sargsyan has a reputation of a professional specialist among politicians and economists. His political image in the CB president’s position was acceptable by almost all political powers. They are specifically highlighting the fact that Tigran Sargsyan is not seriously connected with economic clans. Accordingly, we may assume that he can implement an independent and balanced economic policy. It is very important for our country. The start point of his work in the PM’s position coincided with the growth of gas prices. It is clear to everyone that the growth of gas prices will result in growth of prices in other sectors as well. However, first of all it is a result of the fact that there isn’t any good economic development program in Armenia. Most of the ex-governments worked through the path of finding solutions for the daily and outstanding short-term problems. Despite the budgets which are always in deficit, no economic field has become stabile so far. Three years ago, when the worst partner of our economy, Russia, increased the price of gas supplied to Armenia, our economic authorities instead of finding a solution preserved the problem. Now the monster of inflation is again on the scene. The possible consequences may be tragic. Russia is going to sell gas to Ukraine at $380 per thousand cubic meters. For comparison let’s mention that despite the subsidy of the Hrazdan HES Armenia is paying $110 dollar. Accordingly, the future developments are unpredictable. This economic blow could be easier to overcome if the Iran-Armenia pipeline was a serious economic project. It is still a show-program in participation with the presidents of Armenia and Iran. Thus, we may assume that the new prime minister has started working in his position in an extremely unfavorable situation. It is not a secret that Tigran Sargsyan has certain programs and plans. By the way, these programs are ambitious (those will be clear after the 100-day office term). Skeptical people can get information about this by visiting the web page of the CB and reading the articles of the new prime minister. Specifically one of those articles, which is entitled as “How to make a revolution”, is very interesting and it is worthy reading it.
