Opposition's voice was 'loudly heard yet often ignored' in 2019 – lawmaker

2019 was a year of political changes which saw both positive and negative processes in the legislative authorities' work, an opposition MP from the Prosperous Armenia party (PAP) said, summing up the political and parliamentary developments of last year.

″The opposition was able to make its voice loudly heard, yet it often remained ignored,″ Arman Abovyan told Tert.am.

In his words, many proposals by the parliamentary minority were not properly considered to be later accepted or approved. ″The PAP proposed 91 initiatives of which 15 are now in a proces of discussion, but out of the scores of the proposals we submitted, only nine were actually passed,″ he noted.

Asked why the authorities do not back the opposition’s programs and proposals, Abovyan said he thinks that they have elaborated their own vision, which is now being consistently pursued.

“For every unadopted proposal, the authorities say it isn’t time for that. But that isn’t a justification. I will refrain from discussing the authorities’ conduct out of correctness now, but to promote positive changes, it is obviously important to listen to, and perceive, the opponents,” the lawmaker said.

As a positive development, he pointed out to the absence of large-scale political aftershocks in the “fragile post-revoutionary period”.  Admitting that the year did nonetheless bring certain changes, Abovyan said he didn’t see any landmark reforms in the economic domain (to meet the targets of the aiuthorities’ economic revolution concept, making the outcomes tangible for the population). Abovyan said he oftentimes heard only “high-flown” declarative statements, promising very little reforms on the economic revolution agenda.

Asked about the expected changes in parliament, the lawmaker said they hope for a more understanding attitude.   

″Criticising for just criticizing is not effective. And perceiving crititicism as pure criticism is not effective either on the part of the authorities. It is important to have the necessary perception – apart from listening. We say good to what is really good and are are certainly deteremined to point out to the ommissions,″ he added.