Democracy, Accountability & Local Governance
Tumanian Street, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Hetq Online
It’s not uncommon to hear many of the most vocal of nationalists in the Diaspora criticize anyone who says that there is no democracy in Armenia. Either they say that there is, and that all elections since 1998 have been clean, or they say that democracy is over-rated anyway. Obviously, I beg to differ, and not least since the heavy snowfall in Yerevan has turned the capital into something resembling a massive ice skating rink.
Last week, for example, I cursed the Mayor after nearly breaking my arm when I slipped and fell on some ice covering the entire sidewalk on Nalbandian Street. Later, however, Edik Baghdasarian at Hetq Online told me that I was being unfair. In fact, the responsibility for cleaning the streets and roads of snow lies with Gagik Beglaryan, Prefect of the Kentron Community.
There’s just one problem. According to the local authorities, there is no problem.
The newly-founded organization “National Council for the Security of Roads” invited the deputy head of the municipality Communal economy administration Vardges Eghiazaryan to answer why the streets of the capital are almost not cleaned in these days of heavy snowfalls.
Vardges Eghiazaryan assured everyone that the streets of the city have been intensively cleaned. The representatives of the communities sitting nearby confirmed his words. According to him, yesterday 53 cleaning and 42 salt-dispensing machines worked in the city. By now 1200 tons of salt and 4.3 square meters of sand has been dispensed in the streets.
[…]
Nevertheless, it is difficult to believe the representative of the municipality and fail to believe your own eyes. Those people who had the nerve to come out to the streets, tried to make their ways safe with the help of salt.
The problem is even worse now with not one area of the city, even in the center, clear of snow and ice. Indeed, as the snow begins to melt, roads have been turned into dirty streams and in some places are impossible to cross. Last night, for example, even the main Sayat Nova road was knee high in water in places, which begged a rather naieve question to the taxi driver driving me to a bar.
“The District Prefect does nothing about this, right? Why doesn’t he clean the roads?” I asked somewhat stupidly. “Tsavet danem, menag pogh oudum e.” the taxi driver responded, which in this context basically means, “Leave it out, he only eats the money.”
Abovian Street, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Hetq Online
Mashtots Avenue, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Hetq Online
Well, it’s not my place to cast doubts on handling of the local community’s budget by Gagik Beglaryan (AKA Chorni Gago) or his character in general, but here’s a few references to him from recent media reports.
The meeting was regularly interrupted by egg-throwing and clashes between the participants and skin-headed young men. A cameraman of the “HayTV” TV company got his camera damaged during one of the clashes. Among the young men the meeting participants recognized representatives of the Prefect of Yerevan’s Center community Gagik Beglaryan.
http://felist.com/archive/media.arminfo/200404/05214305.htmlLaw enforcement officers patrolling the polling stations did not intervene. In the Central district of Yerevan, governed by prefect Gagik Beglaryan, a shady businessman better known as Black Gago, opposition journalist Susanna Pogosian was beaten, as well as one local and one foreign observer.
http://prima-news.ru/eng/news/articles/2003/2/21/23201.html
Incidently, last summer while meeting up with RFE/RL’s Emil Danielyan in the Cactus Mexican restaurant on Mashtots Avenue, I saw Beglaryan and had to wonder why the head of the Kentron District needs so manybodyguards. There was one guarding the door, two standing by Beglaryan’s black jeeps parked outside, and one at the bar keeping an ear on the conversation Emil and I were having.
Still, to be fair to Beglaryan, if it is indeed his responsibility to keep the roads clean in the center, my local community head in the Arabkir district of the city is no better. It’s the same story with the snow and ice, as well as with roads turning into polluted rivers. It’s also an example of why democracy is so important.
When both national and local elections are decided by ballot-box stuffing, creative counting in the Election Commissions, and vote-buying, it’s little wonder why this situation emerges. Nobody need fear losing their position because the public are angry with their handling of various issues because basically, the people’s will does not determine the outcome of elections.
On the other hand, and as Garo (AKA Christian Garbis) points out over at Notes from Hairenik, the people also don’t even attempt to protect their votes or demand accountability from their supposedly elected representatives. Unfortunately, civil society in Armenia is also dead and shows no sign of resurrecting itself anytime soon.
Komitas, Arabkir District, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Hetq Online
Still, to end on a more positive note, Yerevan does look pretty, and with less cars on the road, the air also tastes fresher.
It would also appear that the same problem exists in Tbilisi. Incidently, there are some lovely photographs of Georgia in snow at SueAndNotU. If anyone in Tbilisi is reading this post, please add a comment as to whether the local authorities are failing to clean the streets and roads after the lastest snowfall.
I want to just add that the main streets in the city’s center–at least half of their width or more–are cleaned by the next morning after a snowfall, as was the case over the weekend, which is normal. It takes a while for the plows to clean the streets all night long. It sounds like a different situation where you are in Arabkir. There was a problem, however, yesterday on the Pushkin and Abovyan intersection, where the metal wall exists blocking traffic from entering due to construction. The width of Pushkin Street there was flooded with water about a foot high, since the plows driving down Abovyan created a sort of dam and thus melting snow from Pushkin could not seep through.
The problem is the sidewalks. I noticed that businesses are responsible for cleaning the sidewalks in front of their shops, while the areas in front of long-ago closed shops have at least a foot of snow, albeit intermingled with salt and sand, making walking even more treacherous. Why sidewalks are not cleaned at all but streets are by the Yerevan district municipalities marks another Armenian paradox. There is an excuse to be heard I’m sure, if the right person is asked.
There seems to be too many Gagos running around Yerevan these days….
Comment by Christian Garbis — February 6, 2006 @ 11:44 am
Garo, piling up snow on the sides of streets so that it melts and creates floods and even more ice is not my idea of cleaning the roads. In fact, to me it looks as though they’re instead waiting for the cars to naturally clear the snow. This is what I see in the Center.
And then there’s another issue. Taxes are paid, money from budgets allocated etc., so where is it and why isn’t it being used properly? And as your wife told us the other night that it would snow in a few hours, why didn’t they prepare the roads to prevent this from happening?
Anyway, I have never seen such chaos in any city center after a snowfall, and everyone else here feels the same. Sure, the sidewalks are a hazard, but so too are the roads.
Comment by Onnik — February 6, 2006 @ 3:35 pm