“Zhoghovurd” comments on European Union Ambassador Piotr Switalski’s calls for changing the composition of Armenia’s Central Election Commission (CEC) and the Armenian government’s angry reaction to his statement. The paper says that both the EU and the United States have spent heavily on the proper conduct of Armenian elections and therefore have “every right to monitor and express opinions on the extent to which their funding served its purpose.” It says that if the authorities really think that Switalski is meddling in Armenia’s internal affairs they should not have “begged” the EU for money ahead of the recent parliamentary elections in the first place.
Lragir.am speculates that Switalski’s comments have to do not so much with the elections as their aftermath and, in particular, “the process of changing the intra-government status quo.” “This is what worries the Armenian authorities,” writes the online publication. “It has called into question their plans and scenarios.”
“Haykakan Zhamanak” reports that Prime Minister Karen Karapetian and his cabinet have received high marks from the leadership of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) for their new policy program that will be debated by the National Assembly soon. The paper notes that the HHK set ambitious macroeconomic targets for the government at a meeting of its leadership held on Thursday. “The problem is that several governments have been changed in Armenia in the last five years,” it says. “All of them were formed by the HHK. This government is also the HHK’s. And totally different indicators have been registered in the last five years.”
“Hraparak” writes that the number and professional level of young people graduating from Armenian universities each “do not correspond to real demand.” “Every year we produced hundreds of journalists, philologists, economists, international relations specialists, who did not find jobs before getting retrained or leaving the country,” writes the paper. It notes with satisfaction that the number of applications for university programs on international relations, economics, chemistry, biology and physics has gone down significantly this year. By contrast, it says, there is a sizable rise in young Armenians seeking to become information technology specialists.
(Tigran Avetisian)
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