It’s Impossible to Overcome Corruption without a Citizen’s Involvement”

Varuzhan Hoktanyan, Executive Director of Transparency International Anti-corruption Center, is the interviewee of 168.am.

–Mr. Hoktanyan, Piotr Świtalski, Ambassador, Head of the EU Delegation to Armenia, in an interview with “Azatutyun” radio, stated that Armenia needs deflection in fight against corruption. According to you, which may this deflection be?

–It’s clear what it may be: perception of corruption should be so that we may see progress. There hasn’t been any change in Armenia since 2003, a condition of stagnation is existent. And this refers not only corruption perception index by Transparency International, but also researches by the World Bank, Freedom House, which reveal no progress. How perception will change, these are, first and foremost, economic issues: elimination of monopoly domination, elimination or reduction of business and political elite fusion and restoration of balance among 3 branches of authorities.

– Piotr Świtalski stated that we have a range of beneficiary documents, strategy, action plan, anti-corruption body headed by the Prime Minister, however results are not touchable. Due to which a result should be provided?

–Firstly, there should be political will. There is an option—regime change, and new authorities which declare fight against corruption as their chief purpose, not always keep their promises after coming to power. The other option: current authorities realize that this shouldn’t last long, and it would be preferable to have pressure from the bottom, and realizing seriousness and complexity of the situation, and that there is threat to state’s existence, they try to change something.

– What should be changed?

– Recently we discussed in international circles as well, that there are a range of crucial steps, and of course, mandatory precondition of which is existence of political will, which, as a rule, and as experience of other countries showed, is elimination of impunity. This is of utmost importance, if there is crime, it must be punished despite position, connections and etc.

Secondly, it’s reformation of public service and public finance management, i.e. there should be amendments to provide the opportunity to make the budget more transparent and steps should be taken to conscientiously develop the class of the public servant.

Thirdly, there should be deepening of freedom of this information and transparency, i.e. as a rule, countries, which recorded success, I mean European countries, decades ago undertook serious steps in the field of freedom of speech, so that the public was aware of how and what resolutions have been adopted by opinion-makers.

The fourth one is activeness of citizens, so that a citizen feels that without his/her participation corruption is impossible to overcome.

This is the most serious issue among countries like ours, especially for Armenia, where there is an atmosphere of tolerance towards ubiquitous indifference and corruption.

In likewise atmosphere, of course, many things depend on behavior of the authorities, however, such examples are a lot in the world, when despite the level of corruption of the authorities, the citizens tried to fight against it, took some steps to prevent it, by actively going to the streets and engaging with active movements. Unfortunately, this lacks in our country.

And the last one, like other types of crime, corruption is also becoming international. And we already have a rather serious case on offshore scandal. It’s important that offshore, money laundering and other possibilities in international relations were excluded, and there were no serious obstacles to them. And this is not the issue of that country only, it requires international cooperation and accords, for instance, convention on fight against corruption, Armenia ratified the convention of the Council of Europe on Criminal Law, implementation of commitments within GRECO or Organization for Economic Co-operation and development (OECd) and etc. They mainly refer domestic policy, but when they are on the level of various countries or the whole world, this provided the opportunity to cooperate with those countries. These are the main components and conceptual elements, which may contribute to corruption reduction in any country, including Armenia.

–And practically is it possible that in case of absence of regime change, authorities, accused of corruption, themselves may “convert”, show political will and fight against corruption?

–First and foremost, to be clear, I don’t have any deception that Armenia’s authorities will start arresting many high-ranking officials, moreover, there is serious ground to suppose that in our country corruption bears systemic nature, and this show corruption perception low indices, and in case of the systemic one, we may expect that in this corruption pyramid these repressive methods may lead to arrests in the top, or the situation may change due to arrests, I’m suspicious about it. There is another point as well, possibly, for instance, like in case of Singapore, the then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew ordered to detain his friends for corruption.

I’m suspicious, that in Armenia the same case will be recorded, we also edified arrests of many officials, but, as a result, the fields haven’t been completely cleared, as under availability of systemic pyramid, even substituting the element or person near the top, the pyramid isn’t falling apart.

For that reason, political will may be observed in the abovementioned serious reforms, and authorities will say, that going on the same way may lead to serious implications, and start to fight against it. For this, not only the fact, to which extent the authorities think of it, but it’s important to have pressure from the bottom. Both factors are needed, as not always pressure from the bottom leads to it.

For instance, observing history of Scandinavian countries, in Denmark, which is currently the cleanest country, yet in 17-18 centuries public service amendments have been implemented. At that time Denmark was an absolute monarchy, but the monarch realized that only through that it’s possible to have a blooming country, in case of which people won’t think of doing what occurred in France in 1789, i.e. the monarch realized that he might end his life on a guillotine and implemented successful reforms. Of course, it needs serious analysis to understand to which extent it’s possible in Armenia.

To my mind, in case of Armenia, vivid directions, which will show that there is political will, first and foremost, would be implementation of economic reforms, which will seriously hit two main pillars of corruption in Armenia—monopolies, which always bring to corruption, and make the government and the parliament pass resolutions in favor of them, and fusion of economic and political elites, when high-ranking officials have their own businesses. A question arises here: how will they quit them? But if they don’t quit them and there is no such a will, the rest is just lyrics.

–The EU Ambassador mentioned that speech by Armenia’s president in February may be a ground for productive activities.

–Of course, it may, but may also not. Everything is possible. I never heard speeches by heads of Armenia and in the Soviet period, who might say that we steal and it’s well. The issue is not in words. Actions speak louder. I welcome the president’s words, so let’s start acting.

By Gayane Khachatryan