The coalition government of Armenia is going through critical times and needs radical reforms, Hrair Karapetyan, the Chairman of the Committee on Defense National Security and Internal Affairs, RA Parliament, member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), told a press conference.

He stressed that by the reforms he means government socio-economic programs, rather than individuals. “The present halfhearted economic recovery measures are ineffective, and not only people, but also government officials, are dissatisfied. I think the President should draw conclusions and take radical steps to improve the situation,” Karapetyan said. He pointed out that the Armenian Government’s quality suffered after the ARF withdrew from the coalition. If urgent measures to improve the socio-economic situation in Armenia are not taken, Armenia’s national security and the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process will be endangered.

As regards the general political situation, Karapetyan stressed that “a positive regress” to the national values and ideas has lately been observed.

“The Government is regressing and facilitating the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide. The only thing that remains is that this tendency be observed in the socio-economic sector as well,” he said. Among the negative factors is, according to Karapetyan, a radically polarized political arena in the country. “At present, some political figures, mostly representing the ruling coalition, keep on repeating all the words uttered by the President, doing so with even greater fanaticism that the President himself, others, particularly the radical Opposition, are criticizing everything, their guiding principle being ‘the worse the better’,” Karapetyan said.

Commenting on the rumors that the ARF is pushing forward the idea and policy of the ex-president Robert Kocharyan, Karapetyan said: “The ideas of neither Robert Kocharyan nor Serzh Sargsyan coincide with those of ARF one hundred per cent. Everything is clear – Robert Kocharyan is not an ARF member, and Serzh Sargsyan is a member of the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA). If they shared ARF’s ideology they would join our ranks,” Karapetyan said.

T.P.