168: Instead of answering, they threaten

Instead of answering and being accountable for what he did and didn’t do, failures and disasters, Nikol Pashinyan threatens the people again. As he once threatened that if he is not the prime minister, Armenia will not have a prime minister, so now he threatens that if the CP is not in power, there will be a war.

And this is in the event that Nikol Pashinyan and the members of the Communist Party, who usurped the power with threats, have brought only disasters so far.

To say that they have failed to manage the country is to say nothing.

The example of Artsakh is before everyone’s eyes. During the previous elections, they promised not only to return Shushi and Hadrut, but also to resolve the issue of the status of Artsakh. Instead of fulfilling the promise, they accuse others of handing over Artsakh, and they do it with such pathos that sometimes people start doubting what they see and hear.

Recently, they invented an “innocent” way to justify themselves. They say that we made a mistake and try to close the topic with it. Never mind that this mistake was fatal for an entire nation, not to mention an entire generation. No one wants to answer for this. Instead of answering, they make excuses and blame others.

Who, who, but today’s rulers of Armenia have very well mastered the art of distorting reality, falsifying, lying and misleading people.

Defeats represent victories, losses represent achievements.

Unfortunately, it is not always possible to resist the government’s manipulations. In any case, there are things that are difficult to avoid.

In the previous elections, the most important promise made by these authorities in the social sphere was the halving of poverty. This includes the increase of wages and pensions, the increase of jobs, inflation, and all other social promises. The changes recorded in all these aspects should lead to the reduction of poverty by half.

But what happened?

Officially, poverty has decreased, but it is meaningless to compare the amount of the decrease with what this government promised to the voters and the people. Instead of halving, there has been a slight reduction in poverty. That too, as a result of the change in poverty assessment criteria. How these changes affected the comparability of indicators is carefully hidden. Why, it is not difficult to understand. If the change was beneficial for the authorities, it would have been made public a long time ago. But since they avoid doing it, it means that it is not in their interest.

According to the latest data, poverty in Armenia continues to be extremely high. Almost 22 percent of the population, according to the new assessment criteria, is poor.

Eight years ago or during the previous government, according to official data, poverty was around 23 percent. This means that the political power has not fulfilled one of its key promises to improve the social situation in the country.

So much so that they talk about salary increases, job creation, and other social spending increases, all of them are formalities, if they do not lead to improvement of poverty indicators. Here you can see the results of salaries of teachers and military personnel reaching 700,000 drams. Here you can see the results of doubled, tripled and quadrupled salaries of scientists. The results of salary increases for all other employees can also be seen here. If these increases do not change the social situation or the image of poverty in the country, it means that they are worthless.

Another thing is that the social conditions of CP members have changed drastically in these years, they have left their once poor status.

Instead, even today there are people in Armenia who live in extreme poverty, despite the fact that the current rulers of Armenia promised to eliminate extreme poverty in the framework of the social situation during the previous elections.

One of the reasons why the social situation in Armenia continues to be stable and poverty is decreasing very slowly is that incomes are unevenly distributed. One of its manifestations is the current low minimum wage.

Raising the minimum wage is one of the other key points of the government’s plan formed by today’s political power. Instead of 17,000 drams promised for five years, it was increased by only 7,000 drams. They did not even raise it by half. And it turned out that instead of 85,000, the minimum wage in Armenia is now only 75,000 drams.

Today, tens of thousands of citizens work for a whole month and receive such a salary. But they could get 85,000 drams if the government fulfilled its program obligations.

The socially important minimum wage was raised by only 7,000 drams in 5 years, and they receive a bonus of 7 million every 6 months, in addition to the seven-figure salaries.

Statements regarding the increase of tens and hundreds of thousands of jobs in Armenia in recent years are also in conflict with poverty. Not so many new jobs can be created, but poverty remains so high. It indirectly proves that the authorities’ claims that tens and hundreds of thousands of new jobs have been created are false. Under the conditions of creating so many new jobs, there could not be almost 650 thousand unemployed in Armenia.

By the way, reducing unemployment is one of the fundamental promises of the government. They promised that it should be below 10 percent, but it almost reaches 12 percent.

No matter how much they try to avoid it, the government’s failures are widespread, starting from the political, ending with the social and economic. They will have to answer for those failures before the people. Instead of giving an answer, they threaten with war.

HAKOB KOCHARYAN

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