The Past newspaper writes that Artur Ghazinyan, a former member of parliament from the Armenia faction, will come up with a new initiative to form a professional platform for solving the country's problems.

According to the publication, it is planned to start a process to create a pan-Armenian think tank, which will involve professional and experienced people who do not participate in political processes. This initiative will be based on the "concept of the future," which aroused great interest in Armenia's professional and expert community.

The newspaper notes that in the near future, former Prime Minister of Armenia Karen Karapetyan will announce his return to politics, and this initiative aims to provide political support for his return. In the coming days, Ghazinyan will make a statement about the center's establishment, writes the newspaper.

Faktyoxla Lab tried to find out who Karen Karapetyan is and how his possible return could affect Armenia.

Let's start with the fact that Karen Karapetyan is from Karabakh and represents the "Karabakh clan."

On September 3, 2016, he was appointed Prime Minister of Armenia. On April 9, 2018, by the decree of the President of Armenia Armen Sargsyan, he was dismissed. He continued to perform duties as interim prime minister until the election of a new head of government on April 17, 2018. On April 23, 2018, after the resignation of Serzh Sargsyan, following the law "On the Structure and Activities of the Government of the Republic of Armenia", Karapetyan became the Acting Prime Minister of Armenia. On May 8, Karen Karapetyan congratulated the new Prime Minister and resigned.

As Armenian experts noted, the appointment of Karen Karapetyan to the post of Prime Minister of Armenia did not bring freshness to the then-state system, and did not root a new culture in political and economic relations. Instead, in his time, the institution of political responsibility, which was already in a vulnerable situation in the country, lost its meaning. The premiership of Karen Karapetyan only led to the degradation of state institutions in Armenia, because the internal confrontation or its imitation only increased political uncertainty and irresponsibility.

The main problem of Karapetyan was that he promised a lot, and these promises were utterly unattainable in the conditions of Armenia.

For example, he promised to finish off corruption and monopolies. He arranged meetings, made a formidable appearance and formed commissions. As a result, the fight against corruption turned into a cynical farce involving the prime minister himself. But the fight against corruption and monopolies for Karen Karapetyan remained at the PR level.

At the very beginning of his premiership, Karen Karapetyan promised the economy's development at the expense of a number of factors.

For example, Karapetyan made promises about investments, which, according to him, would flood into Armenia like a river. As the Armenian media note, even journalists could not get information about the actual volume of investments: it is apparently so small that the government preferred to resort to statistical tricks in order to show some figures. Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan's investment promises have failed. His optimization policy did not solve the problem of increasing the efficiency of governance in Armenia at all.

Some Armenian economists urged the then government to provide the public with detailed information in which industries and enterprises the investments were made. But they didn't get any answer.

The Armenian government reported in 2017 that more than $1 billion of investment had come to Armenia. But then it turned out that this also meant loans. No one except the government of Armenia knew where the investments were going.

In 2017, with such figures, the country should have received 100-120 billion drams (around $248 billion to $298 billion) in tax revenue per month. But for nine months, this figure amounted to only 95 billion drams (just over $236 billion). This means that the level of state revenues is miserable.

Karen Karapetyan's optimization policy, according to Armenian experts, did not solve the problem of improving management efficiency at all, only increasing unemployment, especially in education and healthcare.

Karapetyan appeared as a complete amateur, not versed in either politics or economics. And the new ministers he appointed turned out to be no less swindlers than their predecessors.

But interestingly, the National Statistical Service of Armenia announced the data, according to which, during the year of Karen Karapetyan's premiership, the rate of population decline accelerated. According to the data of the National Statistical Service, on October 1, 2017, the permanent population of Armenia amounted to 2.97 million, which is 14,300 less compared to October 1, 2016. If the prosperity of citizens had increased, then 14,000 people would not have left the country in one year of Karapetyan's premiership.

In January 2018, Armenia's external debt increased by $123․5 million and came close to the threshold of $7 billion, amounting to $6.898 billion. During the ten years of Serzh Sargsyan's rule, the external debt only increased - from $2 billion, reaching almost $7 billion. But the sharp increase in Armenia's external debt occurred predominantly during the premiership of Karen Karapetyan.

On the eve of the 2018 parliamentary elections, Karen Karapetyan promised to attract $3 billion in investments from abroad, especially Russian ones, and for this purpose, the Investors Club of Armenia fund was established. But, as it turned out later, the only investor ready to invest real money in Armenia was the Russian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan, who pursued personal political goals. One of the important preconditions, among other things, was the issue of appointing his brother, MP Karen Karapetyan, chairman of the Armenian parliament. But this did not happen and Armenia did not get Russian investments.

The opinion that Karen Karapetyan is a skilled manager also turned out to be a myth. The ArmRosgazprom company headed by him was a collective symbol of the loss of sovereignty, humiliation, and corruption of Armenia. The most apparent manifestation of Karen Karapetyan's "skillful management" was the accumulated debts for gas, in exchange for which Armenia still pays Russia with its sovereignty and sold state property several times in its favor.

In a word, Karen Karapetyan's premiership was built on beautiful slogans, specialized figurative expressions, external effect and background, declarative, unrealistic economic growth, in the shadow of which real Armenia is - with an even more impoverished and helpless people, hopelessly corrupt economy divided between 10-15 oligarchs. Thus, it can be stated that Karapetyan's return to Armenian politics will not improve the situation inside the country.