WHAT DO THE `GALLUP’ POLLS TESTIFY TO?
NAYIRA KHACHATRYAN
Hayots Ashkhar Daily
28 Nov 08
Armenia
By the recommendation of the Public Television, the Eastern European
branch of `Gallup’ organization conducted a large-scale survey in our
country in late October and early November with the purpose of
assessing not only the rating of the political figures and political
parties but also the social-psychological peculiarities of their
electorate as well as the social-political problems existing in the
country.
RASSA ALISHAUSKINE, representative of the Eastern European branch of
`Gallup’, and GOTCHA TSKITISHVILI, employee of the Georgian IPM company
which has elaborated the methodology of the survey, introduced the
results of the polls in Armenia-Marriott hotel yesterday.
In response to the question, `What political figures do you know’, 58.1
percent of the respondents mentioned the name of President Serge
Sargsyan. Arthur Baghdasaryan, with his rating of 43.4 percent, ranks
as the second political figure, and Levon Ter-Petrosyan and Raffi
Hovhannisyan rank as the third and fourth candidates, with ratings of
33.9 and 29 percents respectively.
Much higher ratings were recorded when lists containing the names of
the political figures were submitted to the respondents. 98.5 percent
ticked the name of Serge Sargsyan and Levon Ter-Petrosyan, 98.4 ticked
the name of Arthur Baghdasaryan, and 94.3 percent ticked the name of
Vahan Hovhannisyan.
And what do the people know about the activities of those politicians?
It turns out that only 1/3 of the respondents are well-aware of the
activity of the political figures they mentioned the names of. And as a
result of the polls, only the President of the Republic stands out
among the others with his high records; 37.5 percent of the respondents
are sure that they are well-aware of his activities. The President’s
speech is most frequently listened to by 44 percent of the people. The
next figure, as shown by the responses of 16 percent of the individuals
polled, is Tigran Sargsyan. The other political figures received a
considerably lower percentage of votes. Thus, Arthur Baghdasaryan
received 10.2 percent votes, Levon Ter-Petrosyan ` 9.6 percent and
Vahan Hovhannisyan ` 6.6 percent.
Quite interesting are the results recorded in the marzes. For instance,
the voters are more active in the marz of Kotayk; 95.6 percent of the
people polled there are ready to participate in the elections. While
the situation in the marz of Tavoush is just the contrary; 78.3 percent
of the people polled in this marz said that they would not participate
in the elections.
All in all, 57 percent of the respondents spoke in favor of the
authorities, while 43 percent expressed a negative attitude towards
their activities.
Comparing the problems existing in society with the activities of the
political parties, G. Tskitishvili pointed out the following:
`Unfortunately, the problems existing in the country are on one side
and the political figures and parties ` on another. The political
figures live for themselves, and the people, together with their
problems, are completely isolated from them.
As shown by our polls, the Republicans have the closest connections
with the people’s problems; however, they do not stand close to them.
As to the other parties, it is possible to form a certain opinion about
them based on our polls. It follows from here that some of the
political parties do not associate themselves with the solution of the
problems arousing concern. in society despite the fact that they are
rivals.
That’s to say, it’s not with the purpose of solving problems that they
compete with each other; they just quarrel for the sake of quarrelling.
This is like the situation when before entering the forest two people
quarrel with each other over the mushrooms existing there, without even
knowing where to look for or how to gather those mushrooms.’
Society’s attitude and loyalty to the political figures was touched
upon as well, `There is a distinction in terms of being loyal and
disloyal. The general attitude towards L. Ter-Petrosyan tends to be
disloyal rather than. Vahan Hovhannisyan has potentials for acquiring a
loyal electorate. As to Tigran Sargsyan, the electorate is more
inclined to be loyal rather than a disloyal to this political figure.
The same can be said about Serge Sargsyan and Arthur Baghdasaryan;
society mostly tends to be loyal to these activists.’