Democracy Is Held Back in Armenia

Viken Berberian

 

On Tuesday, electoral arithmetic defeated democratic sentiment in Armenia after the Republican Party of Armenia, the majority party, used its numerical strength to back a discredited government and block the election of the opposition leader Nikol Pashinyan as the new prime minister.

A chorus of defiant honks expressing the collective angst filled the streets of Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, as the disappointing result became public. Tens of thousands of people had been singing and chanting outside the parliament throughout the day in support of Mr. Pashinyan’s election.

Mr. Pashinyan, a former crusading journalist and opposition leader, had led the massive protests against the government in April, which culminated in the resignation of the former president and prime minister, Serzh Sargsyan.

The opposition leader has called upon his supporters to continue civil disobedience and block roads, railways and airports.

A real revolution? Protest leader Armen Grigoryan on what’s happening in Armenia

Karena Avedissian

 

In the past two weeks, Armenia’s protest movement has achieved remarkable successes. From forcing the resignation of the country’s leader for the last ten years, to escalating demands to remove the ruling Republican Party from Parliament, this mobilisation has been able to be as ambitious as it has been because of the broad support it has across the country’s regions and classes.

Armen Grigoryan, who currently works at Transparency International Armenia, has participated in various political movements in Armenia over the past five years. He was campaign manager for Andrias Ghukasyan’s 2013 presidential campaign. In 2015, Grigoryan ran the No Pasaran campaign against the proposed constitutional reforms that would eventually turn Armenia into a parliamentary republic.

This is a two part interview. The first part was taken on 21 April, two days before Serzh Sargsyan’s resignation. At the end of the interview, Armen was arrested on criminal charges of “inciting mass unrest”. He was released after Sargsyan’s resignation.

Armenia's anti-corruption council accused of lavish spending

Marianna Grigoryan

A much-touted anti-corruption drive in Armenia has got off to a bad start as questions are raised about the spending and income of leading government members of the committee – including its chair, the prime minister.

The Anti-Corruption Council, which receives funds from the European Union and the United States Agency for International Development, formally began operations at the end of July. It is supposed to have opposition and civil society members as well as government officials on its ranks, but so far no one from the opposition or non-governmental organisations has joined – largely because of scepticism about its credibility.

Corruption by the Numbers

 Garen Yegparian

We hear a lot about corruption, and see various forms of it in our daily lives. Sadly, in some places, such as Armenia, it is present at a disturbing, probably economically disruptive, scale.

For the last two decades, Transparency International and Goettingen University have compiled a “Corruption Perception Index” which is a “poll of polls” as they describe it. They amass others’ studies of corruption in countries throughout the world and produce an annual tabulation of countries with a rating, on a scale of 0-10, where 10 means corruption free and 0 totally corrupt. They require that a minimum of three (formerly four) surveys/studies include a country for that to be included in their index. They have used at least twelve surveys/studies since 1999 (earlier years had fewer). Polling done over the preceding three years is considered valid for inclusion in any year’s compilation. For these reasons, they caution that year-to-year comparisons should not be made easily. But take a look at the accompanying table, and you’ll note the trends in our homeland and its neighbors are pretty consistent.