Monday, January 20 2014

The key piece of news of the rally held at the Liberty Square on 18 January against the obligatory introduction of the accumulative pension system, is the fact that civic activists were in its vanguard, and the politicians had nothing else to do than to be just its wake, Director of Armenian Centre for National and International Studies, Manvel Sargsyan, told Arminfo correspondent. 

"The rally was unprecedented, taking into consideration the fact that political parties were simply forced to accept an invitation of the civil initiative to participate in the rally. It is no secret, how jealous political parties are of civic activists' successes. However, members of the parties which made a speech at the rally, confessed formation of the new situation when the joint participation of parties and civic activists in the struggle has become possible. The century-long experience of other countries showed that such a scenario always led to more effectiveness, as unlike the politicians, it is more difficult to make arrangements with the youth. For this reason, the fact that such a scenario has finally become effective in Armenia, is evidence of the prospects for creation of a strong and well regulated wave, in which parties will not be a decisive force any more", - Sargsyan said. 

Even if the Constitutional Court recognizes nonconstructive the law adopted by the parliament "On introduction of accumulative pension system in Armenia, this will mean that the regime itself understood inexpediency of the law, the expert said. He recalled that the youth movement against paying 150 drams for passenger fare found the formula of success. And now they should look for a new formula, as there are no universal formulas for all cases. 

The compulsory accumulative pension system will apply to the citizens born after Jan 1 1974 (the citizens below 40). Starting Jan 1 2014, 5% of their salaries will be transferred to their personal accumulative accounts. The government will transfer a similar amount (but no more than 25,000 drams). It is noteworthy that 6.6%-13% and not 5% of the monthly wages will be charged, as the charges will be made from the so- called "brutto-salary."