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48 I Eurasia bne November 2019
In the meantime, the government pushed for a series of high-profile trials against former senior officials, most notably ex-president Robert Kocharyan, billing them as anti-corruption mea- sures. Those have been crowd-pleasing affairs but have done little to address the more systemic problems that the new government inherited.
“The people are very hooked on these individual, one-off anti-corruption investigations,” the Western diplomat said. “They get very excited when they see this guy or that guy under investiga- tion or detained but that isn’t a compre- hensive anti-corruption strategy.”
In June, Zeynalian was replaced by Rustam Badasyan, a 28-year-old who had previously served as Pashinian’s per- sonal lawyer. Since then, observers have noted an invigoration in the ministry. On October 10, the Justice Ministry rolled out a broad programme of judicial, elec- toral, and constitutional reforms, as well as the creation of a body to investigate human rights violations under previous governments.
But to many, the move came later than it should have.
“One of the biggest concerns that people have is that reforms are very slow. Peo- ple voted for this government because
of this revolutionary nature and people are waiting for dramatic changes to take place,” the NGO official said. “With this judicial reform, for example, it is lagging behind. They should have started it earlier, that’s for sure.”
“Pashinian’s position is that it is too soon to move on this”
The grumbling about the slow pace
has been widespread. A May poll from the International Republican Institute found that more than 60% of Armenians thought that political and economic reforms should be undertaken “quick- ly,” and Pashinian has been forced to respond to the criticism.
“My impression and opinion is that quick reforms mean failed reforms,” he said in June. “In the early ‘90s, several brilliant reforms of strategic significance failed,
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only because their authors decided and wanted to introduce them in Armenia very quickly. And these reforms till now have not been implemented and till now Armenia bears the heavy consequences of the failure of these reforms.”
But many characterise the slow pace
as the result not of deliberation, but of paralysis. The question of the gold mine, Amulsar, and of the Istanbul Convention on domestic violence, have been the two most contentious issues among mem- bers of the new government and parlia- ment, said one source involved in the deliberations who spoke to Eurasianet on condition of anonymity.
That contention is hidden because of
a policy in the ruling My Step coalition in parliament to hold internal debates to determine the coalition’s position, and then to vote unanimously, the source said. “That’s why your interviews before the vote and your actual vote can be two separate things,” the source said. “People who just see the sessions [of parliament] when the vote takes place think that this is just another [former ruling] Repub- lican Party, when the order came from above and they unanimously executed it. It’s not like that now but it definitely looks like that from the outside.”
But the behind-the-scenes debates have complicated the decision making on both Amulsar and the Istanbul Convention.
The Amulsar gold mine has long been one of the most vexing issues for the new government. Work on the mine was begun under the previous government, and there were irregularities in studies showing it would not harm the environ- ment. When Pashinian came to power, he faced pressure from grassroots activ- ists to reexamine the environmental impact. But Pashinian also has made attracting foreign investment key to reviving Armenia’s economy, and back- ing out of the project – carried out by a company based in the US and registered in the UK – would send a bad signal to other potential investors.
“The Amulsar issue was carefully reviewed by My Step experts, econo-
mists and lawyers,” the ministry official said. “Some people were very against mining, others were afraid of the obvi- ous – that it would hurt investment.”
Pashinian announced on August 19, via
a Facebook video, that a long-awaited environmental report indicated that “the mine should be exploited.” But many Pashinian allies, including government officials, publicly objected that his reading of the report was too optimistic and the prime minister two weeks later walked back the approval, asking the Environ- ment Ministry to gather more data.
The Istanbul Convention has posed a similar dilemma: Many of the new senior officials support ratifying the agreement, as do Armenia’s partners in the West. But some of the convention’s provisions, such as a statement that gender is socially constructed and a requirement to implement the convention’s ideas
in the education system, have given ammunition to opponents who seek to turn the country’s socially conservative population against it.
While the Convention was signed by
the previous government, Pashinian’s government publicly said it intended to work with parliament to complete rati- fication. But after pushback, including from the influential church, the My Step coalition decided to hold off.
“Is this the time, and is this an issue of primary importance right now?” asked the source close to the deliberations, paraphrasing the dominant thinking in parliament. “What would be the price of ratification? The ratings might fall dras- tically. That’s a concern. ... Pashinian’s position is that it is too soon to move on this.” Ratification will be taken up again next spring, “in the best-case scenario,” the source added.
But the source said some in the govern- ment disagree with those calculations: “We can’t just keep doing only reforms that please the majority of people and get praised for them. We have interna- tional obligations.”
This article first appeared in Eurasianet.