39 per cent are for power change and 43 are against
Azg, Yerevan
7 Apr 04
By Ruzan Pogosyan
Some people, who are tired of the domestic political rows, are on
principle refusing to discuss political issues, but others do not want
to miss a chance of expressing their views as absolute
truths. Unfortunately an atmosphere of intolerance has passed from the
political field to the public one with people insulting each other.
The Armenian sociological research centre has recently conducted a
public opinion poll on the people’s attitude to the domestic political
situation. Its results were presented by the director of the centre,
Gevorg Pogosyan, at a meeting on “Domestic political developments in
Armenia” at Congress Hotel yesterday.
Representatives of some political parties took part in the meeting,
but there was no-one from the opposition. According to Mr Pogosyan,
public opinion polls help us reach conclusions about the participation
of different layers of society in the society-power and
society-opposition relations. He explained the current domestic
political situation by the process and results of the presidential and
parliamentary elections. The situation in the country is such that the
political forces seem to be aiming to extend the pre-election and
post-election periods.
The results of the poll show that society thinks there is no need for
new elections. The most recent public opinion poll was held on 28
March. It turned out that 60 to 65 per cent of those polled are not
interested in any political developments or speculation.
Asked whether they would like the power to be changed, 39 per cent of
those surveyed gave a positive answer, noting that under the
circumstances the power change is required and is very
important. Another 43 per cent opposed the idea and 17 per cent were
undecided.
Pogosyan said that there is an internal diplomatic crisis in the
country. He was referring to the failure of the three political forces
of the coalition to cooperate. Although it was announced that the
coalition is united but its political forces seem to be fighting for
increasing their spheres of influence. That proves the existence of
certain inner problems within the coalition.
The same can be said about the opposition which until recently could
not agree on the leader or common ideas. So on the one hand we have
the coalition which is not united, and on the other hand we have the
opposition which is also not united. But the most terrible are
relations between the authorities and the opposition. In fact there is
an atmosphere of absolute intolerance in Armenia, where one can only
dream about dialogue between the authorities and opposition.