The previous week the newly appointed government of Armenia approved its action plan, which this week has been presented to the National Assembly. The majority of the Parliament will have to discuss the government’s program and review it for approval during an extraordinary session. Taking into account that the Republican party has an absolute majority in the parliament, that Prosperous Armenia has entered into a coalition with the Republican Party of Armenia, as well as the votes of the Revolutionary Federation of Armenia which has established a partnership with the coalition, it can be confidently stated that there is no problem with the approval of the government’s five-year action plan and it is just a technical matter, which will successfully become a reality within the upcoming few days, depending on when an extraordinary session of the National Assembly will be convened. During the contemporary, i.e. 15-year independence history of Armenia’s governance approval of a government’s program has never been an issue since the executive power has always had the necessary amount of mandate in the parliament to have its own projects and programs passed.

Instead, the government’s action plan has always had a different, more important and more significant problem for citizens. It is the fulfillment of the government’s program. The new five-year plan can be regarded as quite pretentious. For example, it envisages that during the upcoming years appropriations in the health area will make up about 3% of GDP, and about 3.5% of GDP will be appropriated by the state for education and science. For comparison, it should be noted that these figures in terms of public health and social welfare appropriations are just a little less that defense expenses, and education and science exceed that expense. A sum of 3% of GDP is, of course through budgetary means, appropriated for defense. Of course, this field is largely financed at the expense of extrabudgetary means. But it is remarkable that the government has set major goals in relation to social, health and educational systems. Quite pretentious is also the part of the program concerned with poverty. It is envisaged that thanks to the implementation of the five-year plan the poverty in Armenia will stand at 1.5% in 2012 against the current 30%. No doubt that very few believe that during the upcoming five years the poverty will be reduced at such a pace given that during the past years the poverty reduction pace was very slow. An observation should be made here that poverty is measured by certain defined indicators and a slight progress in case of one of them is sufficient to make a person look above the poverty level as far as the official statistics is concerned. However, in reality he or she moves above the poverty level due to additional 1000 drams as his or her monthly income. So, it might be that within five years it will be enough for the state to increase poverty benefits by 5000 drams or to provide some social welfare payments to the poor population and this layer of the population will in this way come to exceed the defined poverty indicator and will be viewed as non-poor. In reality it is clear that the person’s social conditions will not undergo any substantial change. That is to say this provision of the government’s program contains by itself some elements of imposture, which would disappear if the government had for the upcoming five years defined new indicators for measuring poverty. This is also inevitable and necessary since together with the change of life’s pace and economic development indicators societal demands are changing, and for that reason units for measuring social statuses should change as well.

Otherwise, it will work as it has always worked. Judging by the real quality of life and the proportionality between the social groups, programs by all governments have no connection whatsoever with and are not reflected in any way in real life, but are considered fulfilled simply because they are based on pure statistics and definitions. Meanwhile, the statistics implies a qualitative change as compared to the beginning and concluding periods of the government’s program. The new government’s program is likely to pass through the same path of implementation. For example, the government states that it will be building civil society based on democratic values, will be struggling against corruption and will be providing equal competition opportunities. If there is anyone that can say that the preceding governments have not declared the same goals, then it is perhaps possible to believe that the new government brings new governance approaches with it, promoting the necessity of resolving urgent issues. However, all the previous governments have declared the same goals targeting democracy, have blown the trumpet of the same struggle against corruption and have done everything to achieve fair competition. As a result, all these issues have not stopped being pressing problems in Armenia even to a little extent. But if we listen to executive reports, or self-assessment, then all programmatic work in these directions have been accomplished flawlessly. Certainly, for example, many laws have been adopted that have been approved in conclusions by European experts, laws that have been deemed to be a step forward in democratic development, have been considered as measures aimed at the reduction of corruption risks, and have been viewed as guarantees for equal activities. However, the existence of these laws is one thing and their implementation in life is a completely different thing. This is a problem for Armenia of all times and will continue to remain so for the simple reason that the ruling clique who won the elections and formed a government by ignoring written laws cannot establish a power of written laws in the country because it regards unwritten laws to be the guarantee of its own longevity. Under these circumstances a written program can have very little significance in the life of the country. What is essential is what private programs the government leaders and members have. Unfortunately, so far in the life of the country not public, but private programs have significance and a role.

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