In an exclusive interview with Caucasus Watch, the leader of the “Bright Armenia” faction Edmon Marukyan spoke about the political situation in Armenia during the Covid-19 pandemic. 

What were the expectations of the Armenian population in 2018 and has the government been able to fulfill them?

E.M.: Till recent times the Armenian society had very high expectations from the opposition leader and his team. Why do people still address their hopes and beliefs to the opposition leader and not the Prime-Minister? Because of the dualism of his activities in 'the pre and post period' …The rhetoric of the opposition leader Nikol Pashinyan was full of promises related to the need for immediate implementation of radical reforms in almost all areas of life, especially in socio-economic and judicial systems.

I have repeatedly said that the past two years were the 'golden years' of the current government, as the latter had a ‘carte blanche’ of realizing radical reforms in the above-mentioned spheres and there was an absence of anyone and anything that can hinder that reforming process. Immediately after the revolution, we even witnessed the statements, according to which very soon Armenia would continue the list of the well-known economic miracles... The new government named its first policy program as an ‘economic revolution’, struggling through the deficit of competition, equal economic opportunities, foreign investments, justice and rejecting the arguments of the previous government to justify the existing socio-economic failures referring to external geo-economic realities. Though, in fact, that policy program had so many uncertainties in functional terms that even the one with very basic economic knowledge couldn’t expect a positive influence of that program or judge that it would become a driving force for the implementation of radical reforms.

As for the society, people believed that as a result of reforms, in a very short period of time they would overcome… unemployment, would no longer emigrate to work abroad and finally would have the chance of 'rehabilitation' in socio-economic terms.  

Unfortunately, the quality of the activities of the government and the poor parliamentary supervision show that the 'My step' coalition, the current government, and its leader Nikol Pashinyan has demonstrated inability to satisfy the public expectations and the implementation of promises of the opposition leader. 

What do we have now as a result? We have a division of the Armenian population into the following segments: 1) supporters of Nikol Pashinyan and 2) supporters of the Revolution. 

In the first case, supporters of Pashinyan and he himself have formed the public policy on the basis of the glory of conducting the revolution and being able to reject the old system. Unfortunately, the fact is, that they can’t live and work in the framework of the present real politics meeting new down to earth challenges. They go around the vicious cycle of both rejecting and comparing themselves with the past. This policy is being activated every time on the basis of inaction and mere rhetoric. 

As for the second case, supporters of the revolution claim to develop Revolution follow-up activities which wouldn't allow deviating from defined fundamental ideas and values rejecting the old system of clientelism, patronage, corruption [and] definitely moving towards the development of the institute of democratic citizenship.  

Can you name factors that condition the failure of the Government in satisfying the public expectations?

E.M.: Unfortunately, it didn't happen due to the HR policy as well as the artificial and populist agenda that doesn't reflect the real problems and challenges faced by Armenian society.  It is the right time to say that Nikol Pashinyan and his team, due to their own efforts, have wasted the rating gained during the revolution and for now it will be too difficult or even impossible to restore it. Socio-economic reforms have remained at the level of statements... As for the justice sector, the developments in this respect raise more concerns than in the pre-revolutionary period. One of the evidences of the latter is the Constitutional Referendum, which is indefinitely postponed…

Did you have any expectations from the government after the Velvet Revolution?

E.M.: Yes, [until] the last week we continued to expect a political will to develop a cooperation culture for the implementation of inclusive and competitive public policy the goal of which is the social empowerment of the society and the provision of democratic consolidation. We indeed are fighting for the political power, this is our goal as political opposition, at the same time we have never pursued the failure of the current government, because, in the case of its total and irreversible failure, it would have been a disaster for the country. In all the democratic states neither the opposition, nor the government have the right and time to make irreparable mistakes.

How efficiently does the government manage the current crisis?

E.M.: From the very beginning, the official response towards the pandemic was disproportionate. When Armenia registered its first case of COVID-19 on March 1st, the ruling political alliance 'My Step' under Pashinyan's leading was [conducting] a political campaign of Constitutional Referendum in the regions. After WHO's announcement on the pandemic on March 12, national lockdown in Armenia [was] fully implemented on March 17.

[Until] now the Armenian Government has initiated 17 support programs to overcome the difficult socio-economic situation in the country, the expenditure of which is over the 70 milliard Armenian drams. Though, it would be relevant to measure the effectiveness of the programs not by the substantive features, but by their quantity. Nikol Pashinyan himself reaffirmed the latter questioning [of] the efficiency of the support programs in terms of the choice of vulnerable groups, right addresses and etc. During his live video via Facebook he has appealed for the support of citizens asking them to find the families and redistribute the money among their neighbors who are in need…Moreover, during the recent plenary session he declared that the MPs also have received reimbursements for utility payments but if they are not really in need of that money, they may make redistributions among the poor families…

What is your investment in the process of delivering support to citizens in these difficult times?

E.M.: From the very first day, the whole team of party deputies, assistants and experts were involved in the process of delivering social support to citizens in terms of guiding them and providing available information on how to apply for the social and economic programs. Our staff is accepting and making thousands of calls [to] citizens on a daily basis. During the first days, people wanted to get information regarding the programs and understand the possibility of becoming a beneficiary of the program. Currently, it’s a wave of aggression as the most of them couldn’t apply for the programs due to the technical (incomplete database, absence of the internet or smartphone) and substantive (application conditions) reasons. 

Taking into regard the difficult socio-economic situation, as well as the fact of having savings [in] the state budget we have introduced a proposal for delivering 100.000 drams to 500.000 families. This approach is based upon the inductive reasoning [with] the aim… to use the principle of exclusion and to target those who are in need. Currently, the restrictions have been eased in order to restart the economic activities throughout the country, but the problem is that the infection cases are being multiplied every day and the forecasts are quite worrying.  In such a situation the ease of restrictions is another bright evidence of the inefficiency of the above-mentioned support programs during the pandemic era. Unfortunately, this suggestion, as well as the others proposed by the parliamentary opposition, are being estimated either non-relevant or populist [groups]…

Does parliamentary opposition have enough legislative mechanisms to counterbalance the majority rule?

E.M.: Unfortunately, no, even from a comparative perspective we can’t record changes in this respect. Immediately after the revolution, we thought that the current authority [would] broaden the role of the parliamentary opposition, as not so long ago while representing the ‘YELQ’ alliance we were fighting for the efficient parliamentary performance together, but they didn’t initiate any steps in this respect. They have ‘fallen in love’ with the uncontrollable and permissive nature of the power…It may sound ironic, but I would like to mention, that despite the thousands of deaths as a result of COVID-19, we have to record that the coronavirus has multiplied the dose of permissiveness and become a real challenge for democratic consolidation.  The very fresh evidence of it was the draft law presented by the Ministry of Justice on March 30, according to which the government has the right to collect cell phone users’ data including the location, the numbers they called, and when the calls were made in order to prevent the dissemination of infection. We claimed and brought a lot of justified arguments why Armenia doesn't need to track people's calls and locations, showing that it would have a zero influence in response to the pandemic would violate the protection of private data...Unfortunately, we failed.

To the surprise of the government and the parliamentary majority, the bill failed on its second reading on March 31, getting only 65 of the 67 votes it needed for passage. Only members of the majority ‘My Step’ coalition voted for it, and several members were not able to attend as they were observing the presidential elections in Nagorno-Karabakh. After the vote, the early parliamentary session was over. Though, the government and 'My Step'… regrouped quickly a few hours later and called an emergency session. The same bill was reintroduced on the same day and its first reading took place without opposition parties being present.  The emergency session started at 5 pm and we were informed about it 5:05 pm. We and our colleagues from 'Prosperous Armenia' faction decided not to participate because it would be difficult for us to gather our colleagues [in] that short period of time and it [did not make sense]. From the authority’s side, our non-action was presented to the local and international community as ignorance towards human lives.

Later, the day after the bill was adopted, a deputy from our faction, Armen Yeghiazaryan sent inquiries to the mobile operators functioning in Armenia in order to understand - do these organizations have the needed digital tools to track people's location and calls? To our surprise, none of the mobile operators (Ucom, Beeline, Vivacell) possesses the needed tools…

The above-mentioned is not the first and the last case. Furthermore, this situation can be estimated as a try to start a delegitimization of the political opposition in the country…

How would you assess the dynamics of hate speech and growing political intolerance at the parliament?

E.M.: Currently, we live in a hostile environment. After the revolution during the first wave of criticism over the government activities, we started to… witnesses of the rise of political intolerance and hate speech… As a result, the Armenian society has been divided into ‘whites and blacks’, revolutionists and anti-revolutionists…It is easy to find the slanderous comments towards anyone who expresses justified criticism…This hate discourse is everywhere, on Facebook, in the streets, in the parliament…If we consider the dynamics of hate speech and political polarization from a comparative perspective, I can state that before the revolution one wouldn’t become a target for public dispraise, as it was very popular to criticize the former authorities. Though, in contrary to the past, for now it is very trendy to turn constructive criticism into a hate debate. 

During the past two weeks the local and international audience have become the witness of non-virtual hate war in the parliament. It… exploded on April 28, during the parliamentary session when in response to the criticism expressed by one of our deputies, Ani Samsonyan, the deputy head of the parliament Alen Simonyan made a sexist speech. It was another case of provocation, which couldn’t be left without response from our side. The last case was on May 8, when again in the framework of discussion on the execution of the state budget of 2019, the presented criticism by me and my colleagues was interrupted with the attempt to hit me for what I had to say [regarding] the ruling party’s MP. 

I have already disseminated the detailed information on the incident and one more time I’m calling all our international partners working with Armenia for an unequivocal condemnation of violence towards the opposition and any attempts of suppressing freedom of expression. The current intolerant positioning of the Prime Minister and his team towards constructive criticism and pluralism, as well as the aggressive rhetoric disrupt public solidarity, undermines the fundamental [structure] of ‘state-ness’ and damages every single segment of public administration without exclusion. Unfortunately, the adage “like Saturn, the Revolution devours its children”, which was a common saying for the French Revolution, can also tell a lot about the post-revolutionary Armenia.

What agenda is lobbying the ‘Bright Armenia’ party currently?

E.M.: The ‘Bright Armenia’ party is lobbying [for] the non-stop implementation of reforms, the continuing support to citizens in these difficult times, and of course the parliamentary control over the activities of the government. We can’t allow the permissiveness of the ruling authority to undermine the stability of the country. Currently, these are the most important points of the state agenda.

Interviewed by Magda Arsenyan