Yesterday, a member of Nikol Pashinyan’s government, Minister of Emergency Situations Andranik Piloyan, was arrested. Prior to that, the NSS had searched the ministry headed by Piloyan. According to media reports, Piloyan is accused of corruption cases.
Andranik Piloyan is not the only member of Nikol Pashinyan’s government who has been arrested on corruption charges. In September of last year, he was arrested by the same NSS on suspicion of committing a particularly large-scale theft, then he was arrested in 2018-2020. Davit Tonoyan, the current Minister of Defense, is still in prison. Tonoyan is accused of embezzling 2 billion 277 million 323 thousand 840 drams and committing other publicly dangerous acts.
On February 5, 2020, the NSS arrested Vahagn Vermishyan, Chairman of the Urban Development Committee, for receiving a particularly large bribe. According to the NSS, Vermishyan took large and especially large bribes of 1-2.5 million drams from construction companies to make decisions in their favor.
2019 Deputy Minister of Health Arsen Davtyan was arrested by the NSS in April 2010 for accepting a bribe under the operative control of NSS officers.
2019 Gevorg Loretsyan, Deputy Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sports, was arrested in February 2006 on charges of accepting bribes.
Thus, we can state that bribery and corruption are quite common in Nikol Pashinyan’s government, if we take into account that not all of such manifestations are revealed. Arrested or detained persons will be prosecuted, of course, if the courts prove their guilt. And what should be the responsibility of Nikol Pashinyan, the person who trusts and appoints those people to the post of Prime Minister? After all, in addition to legal responsibility, there is also political responsibility. When ministers and deputy ministers appointed by the prime minister are often accused of a crime, suspicions arise that the prime minister may have something to do with it, and the public has a right to suspect that other members of the government are the same, but law enforcement has not yet reached them.
There are many such cases in recent history when the head of the government resigned not after himself, but after the revelations of corruption in the structures he headed. 2013 The Prime Minister of Luxembourg, Jean-Claude Juncker, resigned only because of corruption allegations in the state intelligence service. A report was published in the parliament, which spoke about the abuse of official position and corruption by the intelligence officers. Juncker could have said, “But what do my government and I have to do with corrupt spies? Arrest the officials who committed wrongdoing and let them serve their just punishment.” But Juncker announced ․ “There is no choice but to announce the resignation of the government.”
The Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe resigned only because the government had allocated land for the construction of a kindergarten at a lower price than the market price.
Moreover, the kindergarten was special in its kind, designed to instill in children a spirit of patriotism and self-sacrifice. Abe could have said that in order to build such a kindergarten, the land should not have been given cheaply, but for free, and something else should have been provided with state funding, while he resigned because the public saw a risk of corruption in it.
2018 The Spanish parliament has expressed no confidence in Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and his government. Rajoy was not personally accused of anything, but several members of the ruling People’s Party were accused of concluding contracts with various organizations at above-market prices and receiving kickbacks.
No, of course we understand that Nikol Pashinyan will not resign after another corruption scandal and even that scandal will try to use it to his advantage to show how fair and honest I am that members of my government are even being prosecuted. : Reality, on the other hand, can be built on a completely different logic. People who try to steal without Pashinyan’s knowledge and without giving his share are prosecuted.
It is possible that all the arrested officials of the former and current authorities appeared in the center of attention of law enforcement agencies and were deprived of their liberty only because they did not share or do not want to share with Pashinyan, preferring criminal prosecution to payment, and detained but released Mutually beneficial agreement within the framework of a transaction for freedom. So, the example of Andranik Piloyan and Davit Tonoyan can be a lesson for all those who will try to bypass Pashinyan.
Avetis Babajanyan