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ARMENIAN PARTIES MAKE LAVISH JOBS AND PAY PLEDGES
By Naira Melkumyan
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
CAUCASUS REPORTING SERVICE, No. 639
May 4, 2012
UK
Politicians respond to public concerns about low living standards,
but it's unclear whether pledges will be honoured beyond election day.
Parties campaigning for Armenia's May 6 parliamentary election are
focusing on social and economic issues rather than foreign policy,
for the first time for many years.
The shift in focus has surprised political observers in the country,
who have got used to parties talking about the Nagorny Karabakh dispute
with Azerbaijan, the Armenian genocide and the troubled relationship
with Turkey.
However, some analysts say the proposals on offer from the various
parties look like populist promises to increase public spending
without a clear plan as to how this could be funded.
"This time, three or four parties have presented voters with programmes
containing concrete measures that I don't recall seeing in any previous
election," Tatul Manaseryan, head of the Alternative research centre,
said. "All the programmes bear many similarities. In most if not all
cases, we're talking mainly about promises to provide jobs. They
forget that we're having a parliamentary election, and parliament
does not create jobs."
Eight parties and a coalition of smaller ones are fighting for places
in parliament. Most opinion polls suggest that the pro-government
Republican Party and its coalition partners the Prosperous Armenia and
Rule of Law parties will win seats, as will the opposition Armenian
National Congress, Dashnaktsutyun and Heritage parties.
Opinion surveys such as one conducted by Russian pollster VTsIOM for
Shant television indicate that most Armenians see social problems as
the highest priority. Some 51 per cent of respondents in that poll
said it was unemployment that worried them most, while another 25
per cent named low living standards.
The unemployment rate in the country is officially 6.2 percent,
but that figure conceals the large numbers of people who have gone
abroad in search of work.
Political parties both in government and in opposition have responded
by tailoring their campaigns to meet these public concerns.
"Economic development will be directed towards providing people with
work and a decent salary," President Serzh Sargsyan, head of the
Republican Party, said in a speech he made in Sisian, a town in the
southern Syunik region.
Now that the institutions of state and national defence had been built
up, Sargsyan said, "we can concentrate on resolving the problems
facing all citizens and on improving their standard of living -
which is no less important".
Tatev Sargsyan, an analyst with the Caucasus Institute in Yerevan,
said the various parties had made plenty of promises, "but they rarely
give an answer as to how they plan to do it. All the parties focus
on people's difficult social circumstances and the problems facing
rural areas and small and medium-sized businesses, but only a few
are proposing systemic reforms".
The Rule of Law party, for example, "is talking about numerous social
reforms, raising pensions and salaries, and creating jobs. There are
a lots of proposals to draft and implement whole programmes, but what
these programmes are and how they will be implemented is not stated,"
Sargsyan said.
Opposition party pledges are in similarly optimistic vein.
The Armenian National Congress wants to double state pensions and
raise average monthly wages to 245,000 drams, around 620 US dollars.
Hrant Bagratyan, a former prime minister, said his party would fund
the increases by curbing Armenia's oligarchs and ending monopolies.
"We are not promising to create jobs, but to create the conditions
for people to be self-employed," he said. "Robert Kocharyan and
Serzh Sargsyan [former and current presidents] have talked every year
about creating 50,000 to 100,000 jobs, but in the last 12 years the
number of unemployed people has risen from 80,000 or 90,000 people to
302,000. The ANC says it will create 500,000 entrepreneurs by lifting
the monopolies so that people can take an active part in the economy."
If elected, the socialist Dashnaktsutyun party would create 220,000 new
jobs, raise wages at least fourfold for police, soldiers and healthcare
workers, and substantially increase child benefits, according to Arsen
Hambardzumyan, a former labour minister. The Heritage Party is making
similar promises - creating more workplaces, and raising average
monthly wages to 200,000 drams and the minimum wage to 80,000 drams.
Experts question whether the wage increases on offer are at all
possible.
"At least half the workforce - 550,000 people - now earn less than
80,000 drams. The opposition knows this, and is just trying to fool
people," Karlen Khachatryan, a lecturer at Yerevan State University,
said. "A sharp increase in the minimum wage could have negative
consequences - increasing the size of shadow or concealed employment
and spurring inflation. Increasing average wages can only be done
by reducing unemployment and improving labour productivity. But you
can't achieve that in a month or a year; you need a long-term policy."
Khachatryan said parties should avoid making populist promises that
would do more harm than good.
"Combating the shadow economy and the monopolies in a short-term way
cannot be effective. Systemic, well-thought-out steps are needed.
Citing figures and making declarations are no more than populism
unless they're underpinned by serious analysis."
Now the parties have to convince the average voter that they will
stick by their pledges. Judging by the reactions of people like
Yerevan resident Rita Sargsyan, 56, that will take some doing.
"Both on the right and on the left, everyone is promising mountains of
gold - high wages and pensions. But once they come to power, they'll
forget all about it," she said. "I'm fed up even listening to them.
Many of them have been in power before, and others are in power now,
but the situation hasn't changed much. They should try living on these
[current] wages and pensions."
Naira Melkumyan is a freelance journalist in Armenia.
By Naira Melkumyan
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
CAUCASUS REPORTING SERVICE, No. 639
May 4, 2012
UK
Politicians respond to public concerns about low living standards,
but it's unclear whether pledges will be honoured beyond election day.
Parties campaigning for Armenia's May 6 parliamentary election are
focusing on social and economic issues rather than foreign policy,
for the first time for many years.
The shift in focus has surprised political observers in the country,
who have got used to parties talking about the Nagorny Karabakh dispute
with Azerbaijan, the Armenian genocide and the troubled relationship
with Turkey.
However, some analysts say the proposals on offer from the various
parties look like populist promises to increase public spending
without a clear plan as to how this could be funded.
"This time, three or four parties have presented voters with programmes
containing concrete measures that I don't recall seeing in any previous
election," Tatul Manaseryan, head of the Alternative research centre,
said. "All the programmes bear many similarities. In most if not all
cases, we're talking mainly about promises to provide jobs. They
forget that we're having a parliamentary election, and parliament
does not create jobs."
Eight parties and a coalition of smaller ones are fighting for places
in parliament. Most opinion polls suggest that the pro-government
Republican Party and its coalition partners the Prosperous Armenia and
Rule of Law parties will win seats, as will the opposition Armenian
National Congress, Dashnaktsutyun and Heritage parties.
Opinion surveys such as one conducted by Russian pollster VTsIOM for
Shant television indicate that most Armenians see social problems as
the highest priority. Some 51 per cent of respondents in that poll
said it was unemployment that worried them most, while another 25
per cent named low living standards.
The unemployment rate in the country is officially 6.2 percent,
but that figure conceals the large numbers of people who have gone
abroad in search of work.
Political parties both in government and in opposition have responded
by tailoring their campaigns to meet these public concerns.
"Economic development will be directed towards providing people with
work and a decent salary," President Serzh Sargsyan, head of the
Republican Party, said in a speech he made in Sisian, a town in the
southern Syunik region.
Now that the institutions of state and national defence had been built
up, Sargsyan said, "we can concentrate on resolving the problems
facing all citizens and on improving their standard of living -
which is no less important".
Tatev Sargsyan, an analyst with the Caucasus Institute in Yerevan,
said the various parties had made plenty of promises, "but they rarely
give an answer as to how they plan to do it. All the parties focus
on people's difficult social circumstances and the problems facing
rural areas and small and medium-sized businesses, but only a few
are proposing systemic reforms".
The Rule of Law party, for example, "is talking about numerous social
reforms, raising pensions and salaries, and creating jobs. There are
a lots of proposals to draft and implement whole programmes, but what
these programmes are and how they will be implemented is not stated,"
Sargsyan said.
Opposition party pledges are in similarly optimistic vein.
The Armenian National Congress wants to double state pensions and
raise average monthly wages to 245,000 drams, around 620 US dollars.
Hrant Bagratyan, a former prime minister, said his party would fund
the increases by curbing Armenia's oligarchs and ending monopolies.
"We are not promising to create jobs, but to create the conditions
for people to be self-employed," he said. "Robert Kocharyan and
Serzh Sargsyan [former and current presidents] have talked every year
about creating 50,000 to 100,000 jobs, but in the last 12 years the
number of unemployed people has risen from 80,000 or 90,000 people to
302,000. The ANC says it will create 500,000 entrepreneurs by lifting
the monopolies so that people can take an active part in the economy."
If elected, the socialist Dashnaktsutyun party would create 220,000 new
jobs, raise wages at least fourfold for police, soldiers and healthcare
workers, and substantially increase child benefits, according to Arsen
Hambardzumyan, a former labour minister. The Heritage Party is making
similar promises - creating more workplaces, and raising average
monthly wages to 200,000 drams and the minimum wage to 80,000 drams.
Experts question whether the wage increases on offer are at all
possible.
"At least half the workforce - 550,000 people - now earn less than
80,000 drams. The opposition knows this, and is just trying to fool
people," Karlen Khachatryan, a lecturer at Yerevan State University,
said. "A sharp increase in the minimum wage could have negative
consequences - increasing the size of shadow or concealed employment
and spurring inflation. Increasing average wages can only be done
by reducing unemployment and improving labour productivity. But you
can't achieve that in a month or a year; you need a long-term policy."
Khachatryan said parties should avoid making populist promises that
would do more harm than good.
"Combating the shadow economy and the monopolies in a short-term way
cannot be effective. Systemic, well-thought-out steps are needed.
Citing figures and making declarations are no more than populism
unless they're underpinned by serious analysis."
Now the parties have to convince the average voter that they will
stick by their pledges. Judging by the reactions of people like
Yerevan resident Rita Sargsyan, 56, that will take some doing.
"Both on the right and on the left, everyone is promising mountains of
gold - high wages and pensions. But once they come to power, they'll
forget all about it," she said. "I'm fed up even listening to them.
Many of them have been in power before, and others are in power now,
but the situation hasn't changed much. They should try living on these
[current] wages and pensions."
Naira Melkumyan is a freelance journalist in Armenia.