WHAT DOES THE FIRST POLL TESTIFY TO?
Armen Tsaturyan

Hayots Ashkharh Daily, Armenia
Oct 17 2007

The nearer the presidential elections draw, the interest towards the
political figures intending to run for 2008 presidential elections
increases.

To scrutinize the election moods of the electorate, from October
2-8 Armenian Sociological Association conducted a poll among 1000 RA
citizens, which we introduce to our readers.

1. Which political party do you like the most?

"National Unity" – 5,4%
" Bargavach Hayastan" – 15,8%
ARFD – 7,0%
RPA – 20,4%
Armenian Pan National Movement – 1,3%
People’s Party – 2,4
"Heritage" – 7,1%
"Orinats Yerkir" – 7,5%
Communist Party – 1,1
Others – 3,1%
None – 27%
Hesitating – 1,9%
Total 100,0

2. As you know presidential elections are in store for Armenia in
February 2008. Are you going to vote during the presidential elections?

Definitely "yes" – 60,0%
Probably "yes" – 23,1%
Probably "no" – 6,2%
Definitely "no" – 6,3%
Hesitating – 4,4%
Total 100,0

3. Which candidate would have you voted for, had the presidential
elections been hold on coming Sunday?

Arthur Baghdasaryan – 11,2%
Artashes Geghamyan – 10,5%
Armen Rustamyan – 0,8%
Gagik Tsarukyan – 12,0%
Levon Ter-Petrosyan – 3,8%
Serge Sargsyan – 31,8%
Vazgen Manukyan – 3,9%
Vahan Hovhannisyan – 3,2%
Vardan Oskanyan – 3,5%
Tigran Karapetyan – 3,2%
Raffi Hovhannisyan – 12,3%
Aram Karapetyan – 0,7%
Robert Kocharyan – 2,9%
Others – 1,2%
Total 100,0

4. Do you believe the opposition will manage to appear with a united
candidate?

"Yes" – 18,4%
"No" – 66,1%
Hesitating – 15,5%
Total – 100,0

5. If you are going to vote for the pro-opposition candidate, whom
would you like to see as a united opposition candidate?

Arthur Baghdasaryan – 6,4%
Artashes Geghamyan – 6,9%
Levon Ter-Petrosyan – 1,8%
Vazgen Manukyan – 3,7%
Tigran Karapetyan – 2,1%
Raffi Hovhannisyan – 5,6%
Aram Karapetyan – 1,6 %
Stepan Demirchyan – 1,9%
Others – 5,6%
None – 7,9%
Hesitating – 56,5%
Total 100,0

Permanent and Repeated Regularities

The noteworthy fact is that at the beginning of the poll Armenian
Sociological Association tried to clarify the present rating of
the main political powers, because most of them except Armenian
Pan National Movement ran for May 12 Parliamentary elections. The
interesting thing is, the parties that overcame the 5% barrier of the
May 12 elections have maintained their high rating. As for Armenian
Pan National Movement, with its 1,3% rating it falls only behind the
Communist Party.

As compared to the results of May 12 elections RPA rating (20’4%)
is also a bit lower, but there is a regularity in this fact as well,
and to reveal it we can simply compare the present rating of the
party with that of the party leader Serge Sargsyan.

60% of the polled are going to participate in 2008 presidential
elections, and 23,1% answered "probably "yes. For October month it is a
rather active participation for the voters. But we shouldn’t overlook
the fact that ‘going to participate" is an indefinite statement,
because it can change at the last moment.

The most noteworthy part of the poll conducted by Armenian Sociological
Association is of course their attempt to clarify the attitude of
the electorate towards the individual candidate for presidency. Had
the elections been hold next Sunday, that is to say in the middle
of October, then 31,8% of the polled will vote for Prime Minister
Serge Sargsyan, 12,3% – for Raffi Hovhannisyan, 12,0% – for Gagik
Tsarukyan, 11,2% – for Arthur Baghdasaryan, 3,9% – Vazgen Manukyan,
3,8% – L. Ter-Petrosyan, and 2,9% – for the current President Robert
Kocharyan.

The noteworthy thing is that RPA leader Serge Sargsyan exceeds the
party with his rating. This testifies to the fact that the high
rating RPA has recorded during May 12 elections hasn’t changed. They
have simply developed into two components – the combination of party
rating and that of the leader.

The 2,9% rating of the current President is explained by the fact
that the voters are well aware that the President’s second term of
office is coming to its close. So, in our view, the inclusion of the
name of the current President in the poll was a formality, because
the fact of the constitutional barriers doesn’t give the chance to
reveal the real rating of this political figure.

We can disclose other interesting regularities when we try to clarify
the growth of the rating of the main candidates pretending to run for
presidency. Thus Gagik Tsarukyan who has engaged the second place in
this poll and his "Bargavach Hayastan" party have already announced
their readiness to support Serge Sargsyan during the presidential
elections. This means if we assemble the ratings of only these two
political figures and if we consider the natural tendencies of joining
the leading candidates, we can claim that the prime Minister has all
the chances to obtain 50% votes at the first stage of the elections.

Arthur Baghdasaryan who tops the opposition camp and Artashes Geghamyan
recorded rather modest results – 11,2 and 10,5%. And former President
L. Ter-Petrosyan who recently manifested tendencies of activeness,
with his 3,8% revealed his modest "starting opportunities".

66,1% of the polled doesn’t hope that opposition will manage to appear
with a united candidate. Moreover Armenian sociological Association
failed to find the "personage" for the united candidate.

56,5% of the polled failed to find a united pro-opposition candidate
and only those who have extremely bright imagination gave certain
names, from which Artashes Geghamyan, have obtained only 6,9% votes
of the polled.

Thus the poll conducted by Armenian Sociological Association on the
first half of October, over again revealed the permanent regularity
recorded during the recent elections that have been formed in Armenia’s
political arena.

To think that the obvious rating of the main political powers and their
leader will abruptly fall in February 2008 is simply not serious. Like
in nature, in politics as well, nothing can be created in some months
and immediately disappear with the same speed.