THE REPUBLICANS DON’T SUFFER FROM PARTY-ADDICTION
LILIT POGHOSYAN
Hayots Ashkhar Daily
Published on May 02, 2008
Armenia
Member of the `Republican’ Parliamentary Faction Artak Davtyan answers
the questions of the correspondent of `Hayots Ashkharh’ daily.
`The day before, when from the NA tribune you were expressing the
standpoints of your fraction regarding the government’s action plan you
stressed the importance of refusing party-addiction. Does this mean;
the beautiful words about the supremacy of the state interests are
veils to move forward the party-affectations?’
`If we consider secondary the interests of the state, and the national,
state programs underlined in the coalition cooperation and be guided by
narrow party interests, we will unequivocally jeopardize the
implementation of the government’s action plan.
Of course personal skin is closer, but it is high time to unite our
people, and why not the protestant electorate as well, those who voted
for the extra-parliamentary powers, around the state problems. This is
the very principle, the Republican Party has always been guided by: to
be based on the idea of national solidarity while forming the
government.
That is why I quoted Garegin Njdeh: saying that party-addiction is a
great evil; he was exhorting to refuse that mode of action. The
Republican Party has well prepared cadres. That’s why we can nominate
several worthy candidates for different positions. The President of the
Republic, possesses the whole human resource bank of the party, and in
my view, everyone knows that we don’t have any problem linked with the
human resource potential.
We have started the process of uprooting party-addiction from
ourselves. That is why we give ourselves the right to voice this from
NA tribune.
`In your estimation does the government’s action plan answer the
purpose of overcoming the internal and external challenges faced by the
country?’
`In my view it is a balanced program. It is possible to include the
impossible in one document: to represent the mechanisms of the solution
of all the issues, the succession of all the steps and the exact
schedule. The most important thing is that the government’s action plan
clearly enshrines the key targets and priorities, the implementation of
which will lead us to a qualitatively new country in 2012.
Particularly the conversation is about the formation of the middle
class, because the high economic growth recorded during the recent
years is far not satisfactory to mitigate the social polarization. In
different countries in Latin America, for many years they ensured high
economic growth, in conditions of emphasized social polarization. This
implies estrangement of the different layers of society, which usually
turns into enmity and hatred.
In such conditions it is senseless to speak about social agreement and
building civil society. That is why in my statement I brought the
attention of the government on the fact that in parallel with the high
tempo of economic growth, by every year we must try to improve Jin
Coefficient of the income distribution, so that rich people won’t
become richer and the poor ` poorer. Otherwise the second-generation
reforms will be an end in itself.’
`What is the difference between this government program and the
previous one?’
`Firstly I must record that this program is based on the fundamental
clauses of the previous one. It is not right to say that the
conversation is about revolutionary changes. Of course there are
certain new accentuations, taking into account the new coalition format
and the priorities enshrined in Serge Sargsyan’s pre-election program.
After all one year has passed after the parliamentary elections, new
problems have appeared during this period of time, the expectations of
the society have changed and many issues have become priorities. The
conversation is mainly about the atmosphere of trust between the
authorities and the society. This is the fundamental pledge, due to
which the government can overcome the challenges faced by the country.
It is also essential, that the digital index of the economic growth is
based on not the nominal but the real growth of the GDP. This means the
real increase of prices and the deflator of the GDP is neutralized by
the growth of income.
By giving vote of confidence to the government, during the coming
months we must implement a serious legislative activity. If we fail to
ensure corresponding legislative field we will not be able to realize
all this. The parliament and the government must coordinate their work,
to be able to implement the reforms, enshrined in the government’s
action plan.
I must mention that there is something common between the action plans
of the ruling and the former governments: both are based on the concept
of the national security. Which means we must bring our legislation in
conformity with the strategy of the national security.’