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New Armenian constitution looks to "save" the authorities

14 October 2015 11:36 (UTC+04:00)
New Armenian constitution looks to "save" the authorities

By Laman Sadigova

While Armenia, a weak South Caucasian country with a shrinking economy, is sinking in poverty and other social disasters, the government has surprised everyone by spending lots of money on implementing constitutional changes.

The Armenian National Assembly approved the constitutional reforms and the transition to the parliamentary system without any apparent reasons and social requirements.

Ideally, the parliamentary system is popular in many democratic countries and has dozens of positive elements. However, considering Armenian realities, it is difficult to seriously speak about success. Indeed, any system can be misinterpreted if it is used for private interests. A shining example is Armenia, a nation famous for corruption, human rights violation and aggression towards its neighboring countries.

The Armenian authorities will most likely try to divert attention away from significant and unsolved problems by rewriting the constitution, but leaving existing problems in place.

The government of this post-Soviet country showed an absolute inability to solve the most serious problems occurring in the country and is now hiding behind the idea of radical changes to the political system.

In fact, huge changes like Constitutional amendments demand social requirements, however, nothing like this has happened before. Experts debate what caused such dramatic changes, but it can be assumed that Serzh Sargsyan, whose presidential term is coming to its end, is attempting to cling to power on a legal basis. Many still do not provide a convincing explanation of why such an extensive rewriting of the constitution is needed.

Armenia is sinking into the abyss of poverty, crisis, social problems, migration and various other problems and the transition into a parliamentary system will obviously not change the desperate situation.

Undoubtedly, Armenia needs reforms and changes, but the transition from a presidential republic into a parliamentary country surely will not solve the country’s problems. On the contrary, it will only increase tension in the society.

The weak protests cannot change the situation, as it seems likely that the Armenian government will not pay attention to people’s demands.

Sargsyan hypocritically claims that the constitutional changes will only strengthen democracy in the country, but as long as people that are destroying their own country are in power, there is no need to speak about democracy.

Local opposition media reports that the changes in the Armenian constitution will not give way to the principle for which it was originally designed – the principle of the powers separation.

Instead of spending fabulous sums on constitutional reforms, it would be more efficient to invest in the country's development, decline in emigration, the destruction of the oligarchy and corruption.

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Follow Laman Sadigova on Twitter: @s_laman93

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