“Hayots Ashkhar” criticizes the Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK), the Armenian National Congress (HAK) and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) for boycotting the 2013 presidential election. The pro-government paper says that “they do not want to engage in their main activity” and “refuse to fight” for no good reason. Their official justifications of the boycott are “weak and unserious, to say the least,” it says.
“Zhamanak” believes that the grave problems facing Armenia are “solvable.” “It is not impossible to find a recipe against severe diseases,” writes the paper. “Armenia faces no internal or external challenges which we cannot overcome. We just should not narrow the scope of our observation and must try to see entire Armenia and its realities.”
“Haykakan Zhamanak” scoffs at President Serzh Sarkisian’s New Year address to the nation and, in particular, his claim that thousands of Armenians found jobs or started businesses in 2012. “By not citing a concrete figure, Serzh Sarkisian tried to avoid presenting a negative picture,” claims the pro-opposition paper. “But even that did not work.” The paper says official statistics show that the number of employed Armenians dropped by 30,000 year on year in the third quarter of 2012. “The same trend was also observed in the first and second quarters,” it says. “And that means that in reality tens of thousands of Armenians lost their jobs in the course of 2012. This is a bad, very bad indicator.”
“Aravot” compares the appointment of senior government officials in the United States to that in Armenia. “Thanks to a system of checks and balances [Barack] Obama cannot and will not try to make clan-based high-level appointments,” the paper writes in an editorial. “And even if such a thing happens miraculously, the society, the Congress and the media will make such an outcry that they will easily get rid of such officials and perhaps even the president. American officials are not superior to ours in the intellectual and moral respects, except for the level of education which half of our deputies do not have. It’s just that over the last 240 years that country has developed institutions and mechanisms that allow an effective organization of the public and economic life. We certainly have no time to wait for 240 years. Nor can we afford uprisings, revolutions, civil wars and other luxuries … given our neighborhood. Stagnation and revolution are equally dangerous for us.”
(Tigran Avetisian)
“Zhamanak” believes that the grave problems facing Armenia are “solvable.” “It is not impossible to find a recipe against severe diseases,” writes the paper. “Armenia faces no internal or external challenges which we cannot overcome. We just should not narrow the scope of our observation and must try to see entire Armenia and its realities.”
“Haykakan Zhamanak” scoffs at President Serzh Sarkisian’s New Year address to the nation and, in particular, his claim that thousands of Armenians found jobs or started businesses in 2012. “By not citing a concrete figure, Serzh Sarkisian tried to avoid presenting a negative picture,” claims the pro-opposition paper. “But even that did not work.” The paper says official statistics show that the number of employed Armenians dropped by 30,000 year on year in the third quarter of 2012. “The same trend was also observed in the first and second quarters,” it says. “And that means that in reality tens of thousands of Armenians lost their jobs in the course of 2012. This is a bad, very bad indicator.”
“Aravot” compares the appointment of senior government officials in the United States to that in Armenia. “Thanks to a system of checks and balances [Barack] Obama cannot and will not try to make clan-based high-level appointments,” the paper writes in an editorial. “And even if such a thing happens miraculously, the society, the Congress and the media will make such an outcry that they will easily get rid of such officials and perhaps even the president. American officials are not superior to ours in the intellectual and moral respects, except for the level of education which half of our deputies do not have. It’s just that over the last 240 years that country has developed institutions and mechanisms that allow an effective organization of the public and economic life. We certainly have no time to wait for 240 years. Nor can we afford uprisings, revolutions, civil wars and other luxuries … given our neighborhood. Stagnation and revolution are equally dangerous for us.”
(Tigran Avetisian)