When any of the international organizations organizes social polls in Armenia, firstly they focus on the reputations of politicians and parties. Thus, the politicians are expressed according to those reputations. If the reputation of a politician is high, their party is named “to have high reputation”, and if it is low, they are named to be “sold”. In reality the reputations of political powers are not of importance that much. The general value system of the society is more important and the international organizations, to tell frankly, usually pay attention to this sector first. Recently “Gallup” sociological center conducted such research in Armenia and their findings are very strange.
Particularly, to the question what is the problem number one of Armenia 40% of the surveyed citizens replied that unemployment, 30% – the social and economic situation, and only 16% – the issue of Karabakh conflict. In fact, about 70% of the surveyed citizens have not tried to think about why the economic situation in Armenia is bad and why the level of unemployment is so high. If they thought about it, they would understand that the reason for such unemployment and bad economic situation is the issue of Karabakh, thus this issue is the priority problem for our state. Please imagine a situation when the streets are damaged and people often fall into holes and get injured. And when you ask them about the problems they are worried about 40% of them says that their main problem is the high prices for medical materials, 30% – bad treatment on the part of doctors and only 16% of them thinks that there is a need to reconstruct the streets. We would advise those people, who think this comparison is incorrect, to talk to an economist or businessman. Certainly, all of them will say that the main problem as a result of which the economic situation in the country is bad is the fact that the conflict of Karabakh has not been settled. In addition, the blockade places a key role too, which depends on the conflict of Karabakh too.
Now let’s go ahead. “What should the authorities do in order to enjoy the support of people?” To this question 37% answered that they should increase the stipends and salaries, 31% – open new vacancies, and only 9% said that they should be democratic. These are very interesting results too. In fact, most part of the society is more interested in the social situation than the level of democracy of the country. Certainly, this can be understood. The strangest thing here is the fact that most of the surveyed people have not seen the connection between increasing, for instance, the level of stipends and democracy. At least democracy also means free economy, economic competition, rule of law, thus also economic development and accordingly increase of stipends and salaries. For comparison, during the Soviet period the stipends were comparatively higher, there was no unemployment, but there was no democracy either. In addition, those who were dissatisfied were sent to Siberia to fill the lack of specialists there. It turns out that most part of our society thinks that this model is better than democracy. A question originates: “Having these findings, what sense does it make to ask whom they would elect if the presidential elections took place next Sunday?” Or, why there should be elections if the society thinks democracy is not a priority issue? They can just appoint someone from their group a president and that is all. The most important thing is to improve the social and economic situation of the society in the period of elections. The method how they can do it doesn’t matter much; they can at least make a single payment and solve all problems.