Decision 2008: Pensioners in Armenia

As part of its Decision 2008 coverage of the 19 February presidential election, ArmeniaNow has started to examine the opinions of voters on certain issues rather simply rely on often partisan analysts and politically aligned journalists in the country. In the first, the online publication examines the expectations Armenia’s 530,000 pensioners have from the next president.

Interestingly, and almost certainly aware of the potential influence over half a million senior citizens can have on the outcome of next month’s presidential election, the prime minister has already increased pensions despite saying that such a move was impossible when the Armenian Revolutionary Federation — Dashnaktsutyun (ARF-D) advocated such a move during last year’s parliamentary election.

If that move was calculated to say the least, then the tactic seems to have paid off to some extent. However, as with other voters, there is a lot of skepticism too.

Ofik Hakobyan, 66, from Kapan does not anticipate anything from the elections, but wants life to get better at least for the youth, if not for elderly.

She knows the candidates but has no idea about their campaign platforms. “Well, Serzh said that pensions would be raised again. I haven’t heard it from anybody else, maybe all of them will say the same thing during the campaign.”

[…]

Anush Kyureghyan, 83, says she won’t vote for anybody, because she’s been deprived of her benefit, and she lives alone, whereas “there are people who receive a pension, and have a job, and have somebody helping them, but still receive a benefit…” She doesn’t know the candidates: “It doesn’t matter who will be elected, whoever it is he will care only for himself.” She’d like goods to be cheap, instead of raising pensions for a couple of pennies and raising the prices more.

The same cynicism towards the democratic process can also be found in the second largest city of Gyumri which is still in a desperate condition even nearly twenty years after the devastating Armenian earthquake. While international organizations and charities have constructed some buildings for inhabiting, unemployment and poverty remains high.

“You feel like in Paris when you go to Yerevan, and Gyumri is still in the temporary shelters, dirt and mud for 20 years. People mean only Yerevan when they say Armenia, they remember us only at election time just to give promises,” says Lena Avetisyan, 67.

[…]

Conversation with pensioners in different districts of Gyumri shows that generally they are not acquainted with any of the candidates’ platforms; however, everyone is convinced that promises for pensioners are included in all of them.

“The candidates are still in the stage of mutual defamations and mud slinging; they have not passed on to the stage of distributing their pre-election promise books,” says Mushegh Haroyan, 78. “It’s not hard to guess the candidates will all provide plenty of promises in their platforms for us to attract the large army of pensioners to their side.”

Nevertheless, as throughout all age groups in Armenia, opinion seems to be divided as to who to vote for. Interestingly, however, few pensioners who can remember the cold, dark years of Ter-Petrossian’s regime don’t appear eager to see the former president return to power and that’s even though the online publication says he has promised to quadruple pensions.

In contrast, Sargsyan and former parliamentary speaker Artur Baghdasarian believe it is possible to double them instead.

Felitsa Simonyan, 79, from the town of Abovyan also complaints of high prices: “Let the president end these high prices, the rise in pensions is insignificant, let it be continued, because it is not enough, anyway, let him create jobs for young people.”

Felitsa hasn’t read the election programs of presidential candidates: “But I listen to their speeches. I think Levon’s are empty words, because they are not justified, he did not prove it by action during his time, and Serzh at least works a little.”

[…]

Pensioners, however, are more pessimistic than the economist. Resident of Yerevan’s Avan district Zhanna Avetisyan, 73, considers elections to be a formality.

“What should I expect? They have already raised pensions. I’d like him to be a democrat, to do every good thing, but I fear all these are formalities,” Zhanna says.

Like almost all others questioned she hasn’t read the election programs of candidates, she knows only the bits she has heard on the news. “I am not familiar with programs, but I know the people. Serzh Sargsyan has been prime minister, and I remember Levon Ter-Petrosyan too. He had destroyed everything and left. What kind of president can he make?”

Not every pensioners agrees, of course. Seventy-year-old Hamlet Nahatakyan from Etchmiadzin instead thinks that Ter-Petrossian is the only candidate who “can restore the lost prestige of our country is Levon Ter-Petrosyan.”

In Vanadzor, however, divisions within society regarding the presidential election can be picked up there too. Even so, that is not necessarily a bad thing with the vote instead showing more and more likelihood to be one where the population weighs up all the options on offer.

Maxim Galstyan, 72, who for many years was deputy head of the Vanadzor Railway Station, prefers two of the candidates.

“I know two perfect candidates who can really be relied on,” he says, naming Artur Baghdasaryan, chairman of the Orinats Yerkir (Rule of Law) Party and Vahan Hovhannisyan, representative of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation. However, Galstyan has not made the final choice between the two yet.

The former railroader also mentions Levon Ter-Petrosyan among the rest of the candidates, though negatively.

“I don’t even want to hear of him,” he says blaming the current bad conditions in the country on the first President of the Republic of Armenia.

[…]

“I wish pensions stayed the same and the prices stayed the same,” Vazgen Movsisyan, 86, veteran of Great Patriotic War complains. His pension has grown for 15,000 drams (about $50) – from 28,000 ($92) to 43,000 (about $142). The 86 year knows none of the candidates.

“But Serzh [Sargsyan] does have support,” he mentions at the same time.

“I will also vote for Serzh,” says Hasmik Hovhannisyan. Her brother Rafik supports Artur Baghdasaryan.

But perhaps one senior citizen describes the situation in the plainest and most honest of terms.

Pensioner Karapetyan explains politics is immoral, because cheating dominates in it.

He tells with amazement the way the authorities blame price increases on the international market.

The pensioner has not forgotten that during last spring’s parliamentary campaign Sargsyan – who now promises pensions increases – raised the question of where the “magic wand” would come from to perform the very task that he now promises.

Former railroader Galstyan adds to his friend’s word: “If they could do it now, why didn’t they do it before?”

Karapetyan asks: “So have they found the wand now or not?”

Kudos to ArmeniaNow. Finally some decent reporting on the 19 February 2008 presidential election in Armenia in an otherwise propagandist media environment on every side.

Photos: © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2008