Armenia ranks, together with Croatia, 63rd out of 180 countries and territories evaluated in the Berlin-based watchdog’s 2024 Corruption Perception Index (CPI) released on Tuesday. Its CPI “score” of 47, measured on a 100-point scale, has not changed over the past year. The Armenian government had pledged to have it gradually raised to 55 in its three-year anti-corruption strategy approved in 2019.
Varuzhan Hoktanian, the head of Transparency International’s Armenian partner organization, said the latest findings of the global survey show that corruption remains a serious problem in the country despite government claims to the contrary.
“We are in a stagnation phase now,” Hoktanian told journalists, adding that the government’s stated efforts to combat corruption require “serious systemic revisions.”
Yeprem Karapetian, the head of a Justice Ministry division dealing with those efforts, disagreed. Karapetian insisted that corrupt practices among Armenian officials are “episodic phenomena.”
“We believe that the implementation of ongoing reforms, the development of institutional capacities and the correction of legislative problems may lead to a change in the [CPI] index,” he said.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has repeatedly claimed to have eliminated “systemic corruption” in Armenia since coming to power in 2018. However, members of his entourage are increasingly accused by Armenian media of using their positions to enrich themselves, their families or cronies. There are also growing questions about integrity in public procurement administered by the current government.
In 2023, Pashinian urged senior Armenian officials to sue media outlets “falsely” accusing them of illicit enrichment. Shortly afterwards, hackers hijacked the YouTube channel of the Yerevan newspaper Aravot just as it was about to publish a video report detailing expensive property acquisitions by several senior government officials and pro-government parliamentarians.
Just over a year ago, the Armenian parliament controlled by Pashinian’s Civil Contract party effectively fired the head of a state anti-corruption watchdog who investigated many pro-government lawmakers suspected of illicit enrichment, conflict of interest or other corrupt practices. The National Assembly ignored a joint statement in support of the official, Haykuhi Harutiunian, issued by several Armenian civic organizations.
