Although the parties that gained seats in parliament haven’t announced the official lists of their MPs but most of them are already known to us especially in light of the fact that many of the known MPs return to parliament once again.
The majority of the MPs that went to the NA are mostly politicians quite famous to the public through their businesses. It means that we cannot see too many new faces in the NA. Is the 5th convocation parliament better than the previous convocations with its quality? Or has it become worse. Let us remember that last year the Armenian government, specifically President Serzh Sargsyan and Premier Tigran Sargsyan have been promising certain quality change for the new parliament. They have been numerously mentioning that this branch should be separated from the business sector. They were promising that there wouldn’t be any MPs in their lists. But is it really so? Have they kept their promise? Of course not. The government has just made up a cunning step by not including businessmen on their proportional lists. Or they almost excluded them from the list. In parallel, however, they stated that each of them has the right to run as a majoritarian candidate. When the coalition parties announced the names of single-mandate candidates it turned out that there are only a few businessmen among them. Moreover, the coalition parties, especially the RPA also included a few businessmen on its party list. There have been numerous publications by media about the businesses of former NA chair Hovik Abrahamyan. He is one of the top businessmen of our country. It is known that among the business owners of the RPA are deputy-chair of RPA Galust Sahakyan, MPs Hermine Naghdalyan, Vardan Ayvazyan, Karen Tchmarityan, Manvel Grigoryan, Nahapet Gevorgyan, Martin Sargsyan, Spartak Melikyan, Artak Davtyan, Armen Mkhitaryan, Arakel Movsisyan, Ara Babloyan and others. Besides a few hospitals the latter also owns several insurance companies. And the majority of the RPA majoritarian MPs are businessmen. Despite the statements of Serzh Sargsyan and others the new parliament once again hosts Samvel Alexanyan, Ruben Hayrapetyan, Karen Karapetyan, owner of MAP winery Alexan Petrosyan, owner of Kilikia brewery Hakob Hakobyan, owner of Hrazdan stadium Ashot Aghababyan, owner of Jermuk Group Ashot Arsenyan, owner of Evrostan Uyut Manvel Badeyan, owner of Derjava Arkady Hambardzumyan, Volodya Badalyan and others. Among the new MPs famous businessmen are Artak Sargsyan (Artak of SAS), Garegin Nushikyan, Vrezh Markosyan. Business owners are the former head of community and current businessman Mher Sedrakyan, Artur Grigoryan, Ruben Hovsepyan. As a result at least 24 out of 29 RPA MPs are businessmen. Perhaps the only non-businessmen MPs are Samvel Farmanyan, an MP from Syunik Hayk Grigoryan, from Artashat – Karine Poghosyan, from Tavoush – the candidate of the family of Vardanyans’ Grand Holding Marine Marabyan and Artur Stepanyan elected from Kanaker-Zeytun community. At least 20 out of RPA list own businesses. This makes at least 70% of the RPA MPs. Pf course, during the last years, they have registered their businesses under the names of their relatives. For example, Samvel Alexanyan has numerously said that he had passed his business on to his wife in order to be fully engaged in politics. However, it’s clear that all the businessmen MPs personally manage the businesses registered under the names of wives and sons. That is the reason why they are almost always absent from parliament. Perhaps these MPs will apply the same behavior in this convocation as well. The same can be said about the rest of the coalition parties. The list of the PAP is led by one of the wealthiest businessmen of Armenia Gagik Tsarukyan. Gurgen Arsenyan, who’s the owner of Arsoil and the chair of the United Labor Party, is also on the PAP top ten. It is not yet clear who’s going to go to parliament from the PAP list but it also includes many businessmen. PAP members Samvel Balasanyan, Martun Grigoryan, Grigori Margaryan, Lyova Khachatryan, Melik Manukyan, Murad Guloyan are also very famous businessmen. This means that the majority of the future PAP members will also be businessmen. There are no major businessmen on the Legal State list, however recently there were publications in the media that Geghama restaurant belongs to Khachik Khachatryan. And Karen Botoyan is the son-in-law of the major importer of construction materials of the country. According to certain information he owns the business of his father-in-law. There might be businessmen on the opposition list as well. For example, recently there have been rumors that the leadership of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation is trying to persuade the 6th member on its list Artyusha Shahbazyan to put down his mandate so they could bring to parliament the director of Grand Holding Armen Babayan, who will once again be the representative of the Vardanyans family in the parliament. They say that the chair of the ARF faction Vahan Hovhannisyan has a dozen of hectares of land, from which he receives certain incomes. It is not excluded that hidden businessmen might also be on the Heritage and ANC lists but their numbers are not nearly even close to the governmental party businessmen. Of course, the MPs and statesmen are not banned from having businesses but they are not allowed to manage those businesses themselves. But it’s known that the Armenian businessmen not only themselves run their businesses but also use their levers in favor of their businesses. And there have been many cases when the businessmen MPs have boycotted and failed legislative bills, which would harm their businesses. Perhaps the same might happen in the current parliament. This means that the government once again wasn’t able or didn’t wish to isolate the state administration from the business sector. As of the increase of the intellectual level of parliament there hasn’t been much progress recorded here either. By trying to abstain from evaluating the 4th convocation parliament in this spectrum, we can only say that since the majority of the previous MPs are coming back to parliament there won’t be any progress here. Will general Manvel Grigoryan, singer Shushan Petrosyan, chair of the National Unity party Artashes Geghamyan, chair of the SIM party Hayk Babukhanyan or the candidate of MIAK party be able to raise the quality and role of the parliament? Perhaps this is quite doubtful. Maybe opposition parties will bring a better quality to the parliament with their intellectual level. However, having considered the previous experience and the intolerance of governmental parties to the opposition, the latter’s influence on the legislation will be minor. And perhaps even now we can say that the quality of the 5th convocation can be no better than of the 5th convocation.