The 2013 Unfulfilled Promises by Taron Margaryan

In 2013, the Republican Party of Armenia and their mayoral candidate Taron Margaryan came up with the “Better Yerevan” program for the local elections in Yerevan. It was composed of 9 parts which contained a detailed account of activities to be implemented during 2013-2017. Today we can see that only a part of the promises have been fulfilled, while the most important ones remain unfulfilled.

Old Yerevan
The program that had the deepest resonance but was not implemented is the “Old Yerevan” project.  During these years, numerous buildings of historical and cultural value were disassembled in Yerevan. The Municipality assured that they would find their place in the new “Old Yerevan” district in Yerevan. However, the construction period of the district is being extended every year.

Transport

During these years, transport has been the most painful issue for the population of Yerevan. Taron Margaryan has proposed to solve the issue by increasing the number of medium-size and large buses, but the problem has become graver year by year. Moreover, according to the letter received from the Municipality, 700 buses and 1730 minibuses functioned in Yerevan in 2013. Today that number makes up 668 and 1440 respectively. In other words, the number of vehicles has decreased by 322 instead of being increased, as Taron Margaryan had promised.

Recycling Plant

Within the framework of the program “Clean and Green Yerevan”, Taron Margaryan promised to establish a waste sorting and recycling plant. Margaryan, who was not able to bring this project into life, promised to do it in 2017-2022. Moreover, today Taron Margaryan promises to create one more landfill. The creation of a new landfill in a city which already faces serious ecological issues is probably due to the increased amount of waste and absence of a waste recycling plant.

Hrant Matevosyan Museum
One of the unfulfilled programs is the foundation of a museum after Hrant Matevosyan. In 2015, the Government announced that it will allocate 50 million AMD to start the construction of the museum. However, Minister of Urban Development Narek Sargsyan stated that the museum construction cost is three times higher than the planned cost. As a result, the museum was not constructed.

Museum of Modern Art
The next promise by Taron Margaryan was a new building for the Museum of Modern Art. The 45-year old building is in very bad condition today. As Deputy Director of the museum Zara Ayrumyan noted, they have been hearing promises of a number of state officials for years but no practical steps have been undertaken so far.

Rafael Afrikyan