Aghvan Vardanyan: Accumulative system will be ‘compulsory and forced’

It is a political struggle: there are authorities and opposition, and each uses its tools, the secretary of ARF-Dashnaktsutyun faction Aghvan Vardanyan told journalists today, when commenting on the parliamentary opposition’s refusal to get registered at the special sitting of the parliament today.

Vardanyan said the opposition had to take that step because yesterday deputies had no time to familiarize themselves with the drafts submitted by the government to the parliament, while these drafts shall be debated at the current special session.

As regards the new law on accumulative pensions authored by the government, ARFD deputy said the four non-government factions of the parliament consider many provisions of the law unacceptable.

“During the presentation of the new government’s program, it was officially announced from the National Assembly rostrum that solutions acceptable to the majority of society would be found. They said they would hold discussions with political forces and civil society to find a model acceptable to the majority of society. But the government did not keep its promise,” Vardanyan noted.

In his words, the government asked the opposition to provide experts and set up a working group. ARFD provided four experts, but neithe a group was set up nor discussions were held.

“Recently the government just invited us to inform us about its scenario, which means that Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan’s catchphrase about “compulsory, but not forced” system in reality will become “compulsory and forced”. Such an approach is inadmissible. More importantly, the four parties consider it inadmissible that such a draft law is introduced in the National Assembly without discussions,” Aghvan Vardanyan said.