Armenia Now also covers what has been a common theme on this blog — increasing corruption in Armenia. This issue was especially brought to public attention after Bagrat Yesayan, the government official charged with fighting the phenomena, effectively attempted to cast doubts on Transparency International’s latest findings.

Armenia scored 2.9, placing 88th overall. (By comparison, Georgia scored 2.3 (130th place), Azerbaijan 2.2 (137th place) and Turkey 3.5 (65th place). The most non-corrupted country is Iceland, 9.7. Finland and New Zealand share second with 9.6. The United Kingdom is 11th at 8.6 and the United States is 17th, with a 7.6 rating.)

While Armenia scored poorly, it has plenty company among corrupt countries. More than two thirds of the 159 countries have positions lower than 5, which indicates an “alarming” situation.

“The corruption situation in Georgia and Azerbaijan is much worse, but this year a more active fight against this phenomenon is noted there compared to Armenia,” said Varuzhan Hoktanyan, expert in public policy at the Armenian branch of Transparency International.

[…]

In a survey of citizens, the TI Armenia office asked whether corruption has increased or decreased during the past three years. Of 1,500 households, 62.9 percent says corruption has not decreased; 15.5 percent said it remained the same. Only 4.5 percent said corruption has decreased.

[…]

Executive Director of the TI David Nussbaum says in the survey results that corruption is not a natural disaster:

“It is the cold hearted and purposeful depriving the most unprotected layers of society of their opportunities,” he says.

According to the TI Armenian office, in Armenia the struggle against corruption is mainly realized by means of making legislative amendments.

“They are not implemented, and common citizens remain unaware of all that,” says Kostanyan. “In Hungary the fight did not start until a parliament member was sent to prison. It would be better to adopt fewer laws, for it is all a formality.”

Eurasianet has more on the supposed fight against corruption in Armenia, and in related news, Armenia Now also reports that the Carolann Najarian case has apparently been reopened.