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Impeachment to Armenian president: will the parliament wake up?

Armenia Materials 28 November 2014 17:30 (UTC +04:00)
After the years of abuse of power by Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and his trustees, the country’s parliament suddenly woke up and decided to take action.
Impeachment to Armenian president: will the parliament wake up?

Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 28

By Elmira Tariverdiyeva - Trend:

After the years of abuse of power by Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and his trustees, the country's parliament suddenly woke up and decided to take action.

Armenian MP from "Armenian National Congress" Nikol Pashinyan's draft of the parliament's decision on "Impeachment of incumbent Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan" included that surprisingly, the local media outlets published news on Sargsyan's abuse of power. The news was publicized in the Haykakan Zhamanak newspaper.

The president is guilty of many deeds, namely, his order to disband the fact-finding group of March 1-2, 2008 events [forceful dispersal of peaceful demonstration of supporters of an opposition presidential candidate, killing of ten people, the arrest of hundreds of opposition members], to hide his guilt. President Sargsyan was also accused of awareness that Russia increased the gas price for Armenia since mid-2011 and did not inform the local consumers.

However, really, this is just a beginning. In fact, Sargsyan's guilt towards the people of Armenia is much deeper and scarier.

We can start off with the demographic situation in the country. This shows his indirect participation in the extermination of the nation. Everyone, who could leave the country, has already left. They retained the right to be called Armenians, but became the citizens of other countries. Those who remained in the country with a terrifying economic situation can't boast with large population growth. This is understandable. It is terrible to make children in terms of constant fall of the national currency, increasing unemployment and expected handouts from the Armenian diaspora.

Armenia has great problems in three main demographic indices, namely, fertility, migration and ageing. After the USSR collapse, the country's population decreased almost twofold. For that, we must thank the authorities of Armenia, namely, Serzh Sargsyan. He does nothing to improve the economic situation, to lift Turkey's and Azerbaijan's blockade, to open its borders because of his ambitions.

Instead of this, Armenian president makes other decision. By ignoring the fact that from the legal point of view, it is impossible to simultaneously be a member of the Customs Union and have an association and free trade agreement with EU, Sargsyan made a fateful decision to join the Russian initiative.

Without taking into account that the association and free trade agreement between Armenia and EU would undoubtedly somehow improve the deplorable situation of this country's people, Armenian authorities once again showed that they attach more importance to the personal attitude of Russian leaders to them.

Armenia, which doesn't have border with Russia, has very little benefit from joining the Customs Union. In fact, there is no economic feasibility of joining this structure for Armenia. All the more so now, when Russia has enough problems: it would rather pay the pensions to its people instead of feeding hungry Yerevan.

Moreover, the single customs legislation within the Customs Union will play into the hands of the oligarchic top of the Armenian political elite which in fact governs the country with Sargsyan's consent.

After Armenia's accession into the Customs Union, large importers - Armenian oligarchs - will be able to clinch the major part of their deals in the underground economy.

In other words, after Armenia's accession to the Customs Union, the customs dues charged on the border with Armenia, will flow into the budget of the Customs Union and then return to Armenia's state budget in accordance with the predetermined quota.

That's to say, the customs dues paid by the oligarchs when importing goods will return back to them from Armenia's budget and this will only exacerbate corruption and limit the opportunities for the small businesses in the country. Armenian parliament seems to have many reasons to impeach the president, but what will it be useful even if Sargsyan resigns?

Probably there will be no use, since Sargsyan is a puppet in the hands of the influential "gray cardinals" of Armenia. They will replace Sargsyan with a similar spineless puppet that will care about the authorities, but not Armenian people.

Elmira Tariverdiyeva is Trend's staff writer

For any questions or feedback, follow the author on Twitter @EmmaTariver

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