Hundreds of employees of the Armenian ministries of culture and Diaspora demonstrated in Yerevan on Friday in protest against the government’s plans to close their agencies.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has repeatedly pledged to downsize Armenia’s government since he came to power in May. He has said that the state bureaucracy is bloated and inefficient.
Pashinian and his political team signaled their intention to reduce the number of government ministries after winning snap parliamentary elections held on December 9. The premier is due to form a new cabinet next month.
Outgoing Culture Minister Lilit Makunts and Diaspora Minister Mkhitar Hayrapetian notified their respective staffs on Thursday about the impending abolition of the two ministries.
Most of the Ministry of Culture as well as the entire Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs are to be merged with the Ministry of Science and Education. A Ministry of Culture division tasked with protecting historical monuments will become part of the State Committee on Urban Development.
A government bill presented by Makunts and Hayrapetian would close the Diaspora Ministry altogether. It would set up a new Foreign Ministry division charged with maintaining Armenia’s cultural, educational and other ties with the worldwide Armenian Diaspora.
The protesting ministry employees demanded that the government scrap these plans as they rallied outside the prime minister’s office in Yerevan. They gave Pashinian until Monday to meet their demand or face more protests.
“We are demanding that the prime minister, whom we elected and still trust, come down so that we hand him our letter to him,” one of the organizers of the protest told reporters. The letter was accepted by an official from Pashinian’s staff moments later.
The protesters said they not only fear losing their jobs but also think that the planned restructuring would reflect negatively on governance in the country.
“We are against reducing the role of the Culture Ministry,” Harutyun Vanian, a senior ministry functionary, told RFE/RL’s Armenian service. “We believe that that would downgrade the role of culture in our life.”
“Can a single person who barely has time to address problems of the cultural sphere also deal with education and science? It’s a wrong decision and this why we are very angry,” said one of his colleagues.
The government has yet to specify how many people will be laid off as a result of the planned downsizing.
According to Sirvard Hambarian, a Diaspora Ministry official, Hayrapetian told the nearly 90 people working at the ministry to start looking for new jobs. “We could see that he is very upset,” Hambarian said of the outgoing minister.
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