ABOUT THE LOCAL POLITICAL SYSTEM
Hayots Ashkharh Daily
Nov 15 2007
Armenia
RPA Congress held recently gives us another opportunity to observe
and evaluate the role of this party both as a parliamentary majority
and the possible winner of the forthcoming presidential elections.
Lets start from the first one. Beyond a shadow of a doubt our country
needs an efficient Parliament. We hope none of us has forgotten the
level of work conducted by the Supreme Council of the 90-ies, which
was split into various factions.
Minimum efficiency, it didn’t even manage to pass any real market laws.
For unknown reasons some people remember that Parliament with
nostalgia and the same people call the present National Assembly
"authoritarian". It is difficult to agree with them.
The Parliament is firstly a legislative body and not a place to
delivers eloquent speeches. It must pass qualitative laws.
Any legal specialist can state that the laws passed in 2000 were
much better than the ones passed in 90-ies. And their quantity also
has significantly grown, filling the gaps that have appeared when
the country was transferring from Communism to market relations
and democracy.
We must underscore that the democratization of the parliament is
stipulated not by the quantity of the MPs that call themselves
democratic, but rather to what extent does the Parliament reflect
social and electoral preferences. The present-day NA, in essence,
reflects the before mentioned: the parties, including RPA enjoy
sympathy among the people. And one-party majority is the order of
Parliamentarism established in the democratic countries. For example
in the USA, from Franklin Roosevelt’s years of power the Democratic
Party has represented majority in the two Houses of Congress, for the
last forty years. And from Ragan’s years of power for twenty years
the majority belonged to the Republicans.
The majority of RPA in the parliament, apart from all, is a salvation
from populism. The adoption of the unprecedented high budget is
against the background of the growth of prices. In such circumstances
the populist opposition will always insist on the abrupt increase of
salaries and payments. It will definitely not stop the increase of
prices; on the contrary it will increase the level of inflation. And
the country’s development will be delayed.
By the way, about the price-increase. Do you remember the Soviet
time anecdote? "When will the planet suffer food deficiency? When
the Chinese start to eat with spoon." Thanks to God people started to
have good food in the swiftly developing countries of the East, which
derives to the increase of food demand in the world and consequently
increase of prices. The before mentioned process is global. It is
another issue that some people use this opportunity and artificially
increase the prices to have super profit. In such cases, naturally
the state must take the strictest measures.
As for the apprehensions that after RPA Chairman Serge Sargsyan
wins the forthcoming presidential elections the whole power will be
centralized within one party, we should underscore the following.
The main shortcoming of Armenia’s present day political system is the
"divorce" of the parties and topmost authorities. Civilized countries,
like ours where the President doesn’t belong to any party are very
rare in the world. This is where the essential failing of the local
political design is hidden, which hinders the process of operating
the mechanism of the acting power’s authority towards the people.
People must have the opportunity to vote "for" and "against" this or
that party, thus entrusting or not entrusting both the parliamentarian
power and the head of the state to lead the country.
By becoming RPA Chairman S. Sargsyan did a determined and far not
the final step towards the unification of the majority party and
the topmost power. For the formation of democratic institutes it is
an equally positive and responsible step. By leading RPA he takes
the risk, because in general in our reality the parties don’t enjoy
popularity. In his present status it will be more difficult for him to
preserve the sympathy of the supporters of other parties, than in the
"status of the President."
But the fact that S. Sargsyan took the risk means that he is really
interested in establishing a party-political system in our country.