The media has published information that the state controller committee of Armenia has started to check-p businesses in Kotayk region. As soon as this information was published, people immediately came to the conclusion that this was against the chairman of Prosperous Armenia party Gagik Tsarukyan.
Even more, people say that this is done for the purpose of “making Gagik Tsarukyan to obey”. In other words, the authorities are using administrative tools to make the head of this political power support them. This was followed by the prime-minister’s announcement saying that those who do not support them will lose, which was later refuted by the spokesman of the PM saying that the prime-minister did not mean the mentioned political power, but still people think that these actions are against the Prosperous Armenia party. However, during a Q/A session in the parliament the head of the RPA faction Galust Sahakyan announced that it would not be rational to separate businessmen to those who obey and those who do not. “Such standards are unacceptable. They should be treated with other standards,” said Galust Sahakyan.
It is another issue whether the real actions of the government and their announcements are different, but the fact is that the politics and businesses are enrooted so much that they cannot be separated in our country, as a result of which the country and state are very vulnerable.
It is written even in simple books for students and schoolchildren that if the business and politics are enrooted in each other, this is bad for the country. Initially the political field of Armenia was established in a manner that there are a lot of discrediting evidences on every successful businessman. It is impossible to collect several million dollars in Armenia without violating the law. However no one punishes those people because there is no need for that. They continue working as usually but they understand that they are vulnerable. Those businessmen who are acting based on these rules and are start to be involved in politics, they start to lose their independence and they become a tool for the ruling powers. Everyone remembers that when in 2006 the LS party resigned from the coalition, the businessmen members of that party started to resign one after another. Those businessmen, most of whom were very successful, had joined that party to have a power that would back them up, however, when the political power was not strong anymore, they did not need it and resigned. Those who do not want to be involved in politics and try to preserve independence, are taking on the risk to have the same destiny as the Sukiasyans.
It turns out that the businessmen, who are involved in politics for certain guarantees, eventually appear in a more dependent situation. If before that they used to just listen to the authorities and from time to time press a button in the parliament, now everything is more complicated. Now they do not understand who is government and who is not and who are those with whom they should make friends with. The most important thing they don’t understand is the question who is going to be on power in the future. This uncertainty keeps the MPs in tension and they feel the danger above their heads all the time. In a word, hence involvement in politics cannot be considered a guarantee for protection of property. Even in some situations it is the vice versa – politics is dangerous.
Now let’s look at another paradox. The world bank and other international institutions write in their reports concerning Armenia that fighting against the enrooting of politics and business in each other is a must as it has a lot of negative results. Certainly, our government says the same thing.
In fact, since appointment in the prime-minister’s position Tigran Sargsyan has been speaking of separation of these two groups. There was time that people were speaking of adoption of an institute for discovering interests. In April 2010 the PM made a speech at the government’s session and announced a struggle against businessmen MPs. On the same day many MPs said that they were not involved in business and were only owners of companies.
What has changed during this time? Nothing. The list of the parliamentarians can become a list of the richest Armenians (Forbes for Armenia) as the most powerful businessmen are represented there. There are rumors that the existing oligarchs are not going to be included in the next parliament. However, based on the recent developments it does not seem to be realistic. The reason is the fact that in our country the struggle is not for the state but for the power. From this prospective the authorities are not interested in having vulnerable politicians who do not depend on anyone.
If we continue with the logic, we will come to more conclusions. For example, the authorities are interested not only in having parliamentarians who are also businessmen, but they are also interested in having such MP businessmen who do not do fair business because it is very difficult to make businessmen who are fair and lawful to obey.
As a result we come to a conclusion, which may be a reason for depression for those people who care about the country. Why should the authorities make rule of law, g=fight against oligopolies and shady economy? Why should not let people do business and promote careerists in politics? The answer can f=be found in the statistics on emigration rates.