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Introduction
Hello,
and welcome to the Armenian News Network, Groong,
Week in Review. This week we’re going to talk about the following major topics:
● Another Constitutional Amendment? [rfe/rl]
● Opposition Rising: New Bottle, Old Wine? [rfe/rl] [rfe/rl] [TV5]
● Iran’s FM Zarif on a Tour de Six [Armenpress] [MehrNews] [ifpnews] [Armenpress] [Anadolu]
[Tehran Times] [168]
● State of the Virus
● Armenia Fund Used to shore up the Dram? [Aysor] [168]
To talk about these
issues, we have with us:
Asbed Kotchikian,
who is an associate professor of political science and international relations
at the American University of Armenia.
And
Hrant Mikaelian, a political scientist and multidisciplinary
researcher in social sciences based in Yerevan. He is also a senior researcher
at the Caucasus Institute.
Topics This Week
Another Constitutional Amendment?
On Tuesday My Step
MP’s started discussing potential constitutional amendments that would
facilitate for the ruling bloc to dissolve parliament, in order to pave the way
for fresh parliamentary elections.
Under the current
constitution snap elections are only possible if the Prime Minister resigns and
Parliament fails to elect a new PM, after two attempts. Pashinian
has agreed to resign only if parliament will agree to not nominate a new PM,
and lead to fresh elections. Both Opposition parties in the parliament, the BHK
and the LHK have refused to cooperate, but the ruling bloc controls enough
votes to prevent any nominations.
On the surface it
looks like Pashinian and his ruling bloc can force
their plan through. So what’s the issue that would
necessitate a constitutional amendment?
As an aside to this
specific instance of constitutional amendment, what’s with the constant
tendency by successive Armenian leaderships changing the constitution to create
short-term tactical advantages for themselves?
How can the
constitution be protected better, so that it can stand above any future single political
party or majority, and requires a truly democratic coalition of forces,
reflecting broad citizens’ support?
Opposition Rising: New Bottle, Old Wine?
Turning our attention
to the Opposition demands for the resignation of the PM and for snap elections
to install a transitional government to lead to fresh elections.
Over the past two
months we’ve talked many times on this show about the ineffectiveness of the
opposition to achieve its goals. This past week Ishkhan
Saghatelyan promised “new tactics” to achieve their
goals, and Vazgen Manukyan said that if
constitutional and legal methods fail to achieve results, the opposition would
initiate an uprising. A similar assessment was made by former president Robert
Kocharyan in his interview on Wednesday.
Where is the
opposition stuck, and what are their options?
Saghatelyan made some technical statements about their
inability to convert the popular demand
into a popular struggle… Can you help
us make sense of the failure of the opposition to bring about regime change?
The current regime
has promoted the impression that support for any opposition means support for
the “former regime” - meaning Serge Sargsyan or Robert Kocharyan. Has this
hampered the current opposition, for example, the Homeland Salvation Movement,
from achieving greater success?
Iran’s FM Zarif on a Tour de
Six
Turning our attention
to Iran and its outreach to its neighbors in the north.
Iran’s Foreign
Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif started a tour last
Sunday of Baku, Moscow, Yerevan and finally Ankara. During the war in Artsakh
Iran was not very active, mostly guarding its border against infiltration by
terrorists. However, since the end of the war, they’ve become more involved and
hope to have a say in how the region evolves.
What are the drivers
behind Iran’s tour of the regional capitals? What are their goals, what are
they trying to achieve?
Iran missed out on
being a participant of what became the tripartite agreement of Nov. 9. What
sort of influence can they have on the new regional state of affairs?
State of the Virus in Armenia
Very high level:
● In October we were in what looked to be a catastrophic
place: We were running over 5500 COVID tests a day, and we had a near 50%
infection rate, with 2400-2500 infections a day, and 20-30-40 deaths a day.
● In November we were testing in the 3-4000 times a
day, infection rates around 40%, 1500-ish infections per day.
● In December we continued testing 2500-3000 per day,
but it looks like the infection rate dipped to around with infections per day
in the 600-1000 per day., so maybe 33%?
● Here’s the interesting bit: in January we’re
testing barely 2000 a day, but the infection rate has dipped to 5-10%, daily
numbers in the 100-250 range.
What’s with the drop?
In the US, where the pandemic management was also botched, we’ve seen a 33%
drop in the daily infections as well, but it’s nowhere as deep as in Armenia.
Has Armenia done
something to control the virus?
Has Armenia turned
the corner in fighting the virus?
Armenia is apparently
getting the Sputnik and also the Astra-Zeneca vaccines. How are these being
worked out, how are they getting paid for? How is the process of vaccination
proceeding? What about Moderna?
Armenia Fund Used to Shore up the Dram?
During the War in
Artsakh and shortly after the ceasefire agreement during the Telethon in
November, the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund (HAAF) collected over 200 million
dollars, of which reportedly around $100-105 million were sent to the Armenian
government, which put them in its general budget as part of its revenues, to be
used for social, health and infrastructure expenditures.
A recent report says
that around $50 million of these funds were used to stabilize the Dram, with
the Central Bank of Armenia using them to actively intervene in the financial
markets to keep the Dram exchange rate stable.
On our podcast in
October, and then again in November, we had discussed that using the HAAF funds
to support the Dram would make sense, to keep the Armenian economy functioning
normally and the financial sector from collapsing due to the pandemic, the war,
a slowing economy, etc. Are these funds helping on the macro scale?
What about the
political aspect?
Wrap-up
That
concludes our program for This Week in
Review episode. We hope it has helped your understanding of some of the
issues from the past week. We look forward to your feedback, and your
suggestions for issues to cover in greater depth. Contact us on our website, at
groong.org, or on our Facebook
Page “ANN - Groong”, or in our Facebook Group “Groong - Armenian News Network”.
Special thanks to Laura Osborn for providing the music for our podcast.
On behalf of everyone in this episode, we wish you a good week. Don’t forget to
subscribe to our channels, Like our pages and follow
us on social media. Thanks for listening and we’ll talk to you next week.
Keywords
Hrant Mikaelian, Asbed Kotchikian, Zarif, Iran, Armenia, Coronavirus, Homeland Salvation Movement, Ishkhan Saghatelyan, Vazgen Manukyan, Robert Kocharyan, Moderna, Vaccine, Vaccination
Additional: Pandemic, COVID, Dram, HAAF, Hayastan All-Armenia Fund, Armenia Fund,
Monetary Stabilization, CBA, Central Bank of Armenia, Infection rate, Herd
Immunity, Sputnik, Astra-Zeneca,