STARTING CHANCES OF THE POLITICAL FORCES
Lilit Poghosyan

Hayots Ashkharh Daily, Armenia
Oct 18 2007

Our interlocutor is GEVORG POGHOSYAN, Chairman of the Armenian
Sociological Association

"How to understand the fact that some of media disseminating and
advertising the results of SMS, Internet and various other ‘surveys’
hurried to reject your most recent poll, according to which Serge
Sargsyan was the top candidate as of October 2-8?"

"During the recent days we have been in touch with some quite
well-known international organizations and have a preliminary agreement
on conducting a joint public opinion monitoring in connection with
thee presidential elections. I was very interested too, and during
the meetings I tried to find out what attitude they had towards the
telephone and internet surveys. I no longer speak about the SMS voting
because this is simply unserious if not ridiculous.

There is, of course a method in sociology called telephone survey.

During the recent period the practice of ‘on-line’, i.e. computer-based
surveys are being conducted via the Internet. But it turns out that
even in developed countries such as England or the United States they
are considered unacceptable as fundamental, reliable sociological
surveys on whose basis it is possible to form a real idea on the
ratio of political factions and their rating in society."

"According to your ‘opponents’, the results of the given survey distort
the reality, otherwise they wouldn’t ‘diametrically’ differ from the
data of the survey which you conducted in August at the request of
‘Gelup’ Institute. It followed from those data that S. Sargsyan fell
behind Vardan Oskanyan and Gagik Tsaroukyan in terms of his rating."

"This is a well-known lie, a falsification which was broadcast by
‘Azatoutyun’ as a " primary source. There was a very simple device
applied here. Generally, in case of using a little cunning it is
always possible to misrepresent the real facts ‘a little bit’.

Moreover, it bore no relation to ‘Gelup’, because the figures ‘Gelup’
are only available to them. We don’t have them either; let alone
‘Liberty’ radio station, which couldn’t possibly have access to them.

All they could do, was simply to refer to the data printed on the
‘Gelup’ Web site which does not contain those figures; you may open
it and make sure yourselves.

The conversation was about the following. Apart from the ‘Gelup’
polls, we simultanously conducted an omnibus polls so to say, with
the purpose of finding out which of the political figures the people
favored more. In response, several names were mentioned, and Serge
Sargsyan did really rank as the fourth candidate among them. But when
we were asking who you would prefer in case of holding the presidential
elections on the nearest Sunday, Serge Sargsyan’s name was the first
to be mentioned.

And "Liberty" radio station passed round that fact in a very
interesting manner and announced that the acting Prime Minister ranks
as the fourth candidate. I don’t think this is correct. It is not
allowed to such things, and if you do them, you should at least be
responsible for what you do."

"Judging by the results of the survey published recently, society
has not actually changed its attitude towards the native political
factions after the parliamentary elections."

"It is possible to say so. There is almost no change in the
people’s attitude towards the parties. And there are two reasons for
this. First, very little time has passed after the elections. Second,
the political arena is still in a starting condition, that’s to say
in the conditions of the possible developments which were expected
yesterday rather than those that will be expected tomorrow.

I think it is natural, since it isn’t yet clear who will be
nominated and whether the opposition will run for election with
a united candidate or split into several fronts. When the final
picture is clear and the names of the candidates registered by the
Central Election Commission are known, the conversation will bear
a more material character. Before that both public opinion and the
people’s approaches may change… Because, it is one thing when
you abstractly ask a person who you would like to see as the future
President of Armenia and quite a different thing when you ask which
of the nominated candidates you would like to vote for.

That’s to say, it is a preliminary poll, which we conducted for special
purposes with our means. Of course we usually conduct polls at the
request of different organizations. As a rule, they are international
organizations, because the local organizations (first of all, I mean
the parties) have not ‘bothered’ us with such requests for 10 years.

But once or twice a year we do manage to conduct polls independently
due to the means we have stored and saved. In this particular case,
it was very important for us to form an idea on the starting chances
of our political factions at the current stage, i.e. in the zero
condition, so to say, when the pre-electoral processes have not
actually started.

On the other hand, the studies we conduct due to our means are open
to public. We can publish the overall results of those polls and,
why not, become a target of criticism and even accusations.

That’s to say, we are responsible for those polls. As to the polls
conducted at the request of international organizations, they are
published inasmuch as those responsible for them find it appropriate."

"Isn’t it strange that the native parties, even the political forces
having power and financial levers are not interested in finding out
their own rating and real chances prior to the elections?"

"The political forces which possess means conduct polls on their own,
i.e. for internal use. They may publish or refuse to publish the
results. Usually, they do not publish them. Why should they provide
information to the rival helping it to make analysis, revise its own
tactics and stand for election in a better prepared manner?"