At 13th congress of the Republican Party of Armenia the most intriguing part of Serzh Sargsyan’s speech referred to economic sector. The thing is that it reminded more of a debate with those criticizing the government’s economic policy. Sezh Sargsyan accused the government opponents of drawing incompetent conclusions, mentioning that what is important for them is “yelling as loud as possible.” Those who heard the speech up to the end and are more or less familiar with the RA’s economic situation, supposed that it referred to the former prime-minister Hrant Bagratyan. Apparently, H. Bagratyan was of the same opinion, since he addressed an open letter the same day. “I don’t think that the part of your speech related to economy refers to me. Who am I? That would be too much and not to the point. But let me say that it refers to me as well. After all you have to know another truth as well. I am one of the priority issues of this country and economic system,” Bagratyan wrote analyzing in details the economic part of Sargsyan’s speech. That part of the speech was really vulnerable and the media would illustrate it with a great pleasure. But they didn’t manage and in fact there was nothing left to say. The mutual accusations concerned the methods of assessment of effectiveness of economic policy; e.g. Serzh Sargsyan mentioned that the opponents compare January with December and make judgments accordingly. Bagratyan, responding to this comment, stated “I have never made this primitive mistake. The decrease is inevitable during that period and that is true for any president and government.” The journalists, in their turn, have never compared January with December. RA statistics service does these kinds of comparisons and presents the indices. It is simply unreasonable to make such comparisons. Select officials tend to do this, who even organize press conferences to present certain positive index as “positive tendency”. H. Bagratyan, in his turn accused Sargsyan of using various basis years for comparison of microeconomic indices. “Your speech is not consistent. You compare the indices of 2011 with those of 2006, and when it is convenient, you take 2007 as a basis year. I guess they deliberately tried to confuse you.” President’s next statement was that if RA official statistics indicate decrease, all the opponents believe it, when it indicates positive changes everybody considers it to be fake and not worth paying attention to. To this accusation Bagratyan responded. “My analyses are based on official statistics. In order to avoid doubts, I will not hesitate to indicate the source every time.” Besides methodology the debate touched concrete indices as well. One of the most important ones is the GDP index per capita. In this regard S. Sargsyan mentioned, “In 2011, GDP per capita made almost 3174 USD, while in 2006 it was 1982 USD – it has increased by 1.6. For me, this figure is not satisfactory. It is even а shameful figure since today in civilized countries per capita GDP ranges from 30 to 50 thousand USD. But, as we have always said and agreed upon that all figures should be put into comparison because otherwise the question arises – who are the judges? In terms of internationally comparable prices, GDP per capita in 2011 was close to 5395 USD.” Let’s mention if we consider GDP in light of purchasing power parity then according to the data of the World Bank in 2006 we had 4631 USD and in 2007 – 5261 USD. Compared to 2006 the GDP per capita grew by 16,5% and compared to 2007 – 2,5%. Thus, according to the World Bank, during the 5 years the GDP per capita grew by 2,5%. This is a dire index. It means when speaking of any phenomenon it is possible to shift it to a positive or negative side. This can be compared with the metaphor of “half full glass of water or half empty.” In this regard Hrant Bagratyan said, “The GDP per capita from 2006 reach 3174 from 1982. I am not the attorney of 2006 or Robert Kocharyan. But it’s wrong to pick a year when the USD was devaluated and compare with the revaluated year. Economics is a specialization. So in 2007 the GDP per capita was 3903 USD (RA social-economic conditions in January-December, Yerevan, 2008, page 79). With this index we place 89th in the world. According to preliminary data in 2011 the GDP per capita in Armenia is 3090 USD (preliminary because the WB hasn’t concluded the results yet) and we placed 114th in the world. So only you know how you could present this fact as a great victory.” Let us also add that in the conditions of extreme polarization of revenues the GDP per capita doesn’t actually mean much. Only a group of people benefit from that. All the other indexes – taxes/GDP, information technologies, social sector expenses and other expenses are no less important. The President’s speech was publicized by all the media outlets but Bagratyan’s letter was posted only two days ago by electronic media. The point is that all these issues and calculations are comprehensible and interesting only to a small number of people. The most of the population is not concerned about either these numbers, or the respective comments. The people have their own opinions on the progress and failure depending on the change of their life standards. It would probably be better if the President delivered the economic part of his speech on easily comprehensible language and spoke about the failures, achievements and the upcoming plans. In other words, it would be best if he shared his concerns and achievements. But instead in his speech the President criticized all the critics by using professional and incomprehensible language. His speech reminded a remote debate with one or several opponents. From the other hand the debate (even on strict expert level) is a positive phenomenon even if the part of the population is not interested in it. However our country lacks the elementary debate culture. For example, we would be very positive if the issues highlighted in the President’s speech and Bagratyan’s letter be discussed during the live broadcast of the public debate. Here the questions and answers would be heard immediately and it would become clear who is right and who is wrong. We suppose that this debate would host both Hrant Bagratyan and the person who has purposefully confused the President (in Bagratyan’s opinion). While in our case the struggle is not equal. Serzh Sargsyan’s speech (including the economic aspects) has been continually broadcasted on TV for several days, while the viewpoints of Bagratyan and others may be found only in internet or in the newspapers at the best. Give the chance to the opponents of the government to express their concerns as in normal and civil countries. By the way it does not require either a large amount of money or any special programs. In his speech Serzh Sargsyan said, “Many of us have been abroad and have often compared Armenia with other countries, many of us have looked with admiring envy at good and nice things observed in other countries. And also many of us regretted that the same things are not observed in Armenia. But what prevents us to make changes? We are not worse than the others. However, if nothing is changed it means that there is an obstacle which prevents any change.”
