"Fact" daily writes:
"In general, the past year, being the last year in terms of the pre-election phase, did not stand out for this government in the sense of not fulfilling its promises.
This year too, we have to record that the current ruling party did not follow the path of fulfilling its social and economic promises made in 2021, but on the contrary, gave their own special populist explanations, new false promises," said Tadevos Avetisyan, deputy of the Armenia faction of the National Assembly, economist, summarizing the past economic year.
He reminds that this government has approved the state budget for 2026. "We record that no social promise has been fulfilled. For example, the average amount of pensions should be adjusted to the value of the minimum consumer basket. Previously, when we talked about it, they said: there is still time, we will fulfill our promises.
And now, when any social promise has not been fulfilled, they bring reasons again, as if they are objective, they try to explain and manipulate our society again. But obviously the three main, collective social promises, which are measurable, have not been implemented this year and will not be implemented, they cheated."
Then the economist lists the unfulfilled promises of the government. "These authorities promised qualitative "reforms" of the economic system, foreign economic diversification. In fact, we have the exact opposite picture: the dependence of Armenia's economy on one country continuously increased.
They promised an investment boom, but we did not witness it, on the contrary, we again had manifestations of "escape" of capital. They promised high economic growth at the expense of the potential of our country's economy, but again we noted that the growth we have this year has significantly decreased compared to previous years.
It also proved that the main factor affecting the high growth is not internal, but external, and is due to an external random factor, the situation created in the conditions of the Russian-Ukrainian war.
They promised that we will have a significant improvement of the demographic picture, but the opposite was recorded: the demographic situation is getting worse, approaching a crisis. This year, we had a continuous decrease in births, an increase in deaths, the natural increase in the mortality rate decreased, the number of marriages decreased, and the number of divorces increased. This deterioration can be seen especially in rural areas, which is very worrying.
They constantly promised support for families with many children, etc., and with one of the last projects of this year, the one-time allowance for the birth of the 3rd, 4th, 5th children was significantly reduced. For example, in the case of the 3rd and 4th child, one million drams to be provided became 500 thousand drams, in the case of the 5th and next child - 1.5 million, again 500 thousand drams. They also promised that they will ensure the development of small and medium-sized businesses, and they constantly emphasize that they will ensure the slogan from benefit to work.
However, this year we recorded that the tax burden on micro-businesses and small businesses doubled, the turnover tax increased from 5% to 10%. Increasing the tax burden on medium, small and micro businesses in that sector led to bankruptcies, many lost their businesses, became beneficiaries or emigrated. In addition to all this, we should also note that this year a significant inflation of essential goods was recorded.
The value of the minimum consumer basket is increasing in the event that pensions, unemployment benefits and the minimum wage will not increase next year. The inflation of basic necessities continues, and thus it can be recorded that next year our pensioners, beneficiaries and the working poor will live worse than this year, and this year they lived even worse than last year, and this is also due to inflation," our interlocutor notes. Avetisyan says that concessions are made for security, they promise a safe and prosperous life under the false promise of peace.
"Concessions are recorded, but people do not see peace. In the past year, we have witnessed the same speech, threats, and pushing forward their demand with footnotes. And at the end of the year, we also witnessed obvious manifestations of economic expansion, which are now masked by various speeches, but it is obvious that the Turkish-Azerbaijani tandem, having military successes in the region, is trying to further achieve its goals with the implementation of soft power, economic expansion, and this government presents it as opening the borders and lifting the blockade.
These unsustainable credit exercises, which they do in the form of campaigns for the import of Azerbaijani gasoline and wheat, are more reminiscent of the seeds of economic expansion, because we all know very well that neither Azerbaijan nor Turkey have given up their long-term goals and plans in any way, they have just changed the tools of their big and long plan, the threat and implementation of military invasion have changed to a more invisible economic expansion. implementation. This is the reality, let's add new false promises and irresponsible behavior in the background of unfulfilled promises. Again, they try to find other culprits and justify their obvious failures and unfulfilled promises in the same way," the economist notes. Referring to economic expectations from 2026, he says that political processes will become more active.
"They know that their rating is rapidly declining, and they strive to keep power at any cost, because they know best what they have brought to our people, and the day and time of responsibility will follow it, and keeping power at any cost was and continues to be their goal. If the public support and rating decreases, then the tools to achieve this goal will be intensified, that is, political terror and other anti-democratic tools. Their support is the power structures with brutal use of force and illegal attitude.
We will see this, and it will obviously deepen the existing economic risks and also the negative developments. In the past year, we saw a classic manifestation of seizing foreign capital, and the goal was exclusively political. We will witness such phenomena more intensively, they will bring obvious, very direct consequences in the sense of economic risks, threats to economic security. Their immediate consequences will be felt by our society and especially the socially disadvantaged classes, our society in a more vulnerable economic condition.
Until a possible change of government, we will witness this process, and let's hope that at least through the elections, a new government will be formed and we will also have a breakthrough in the sense of real development in the economic and social spheres," Tadevos Avetisyan concludes.
Lusine Arakelyan
