The Armenian sociological company has conducted one more stage of social polls for the period of December 1-9.
The results of those polls were later prepared, articulated and analyzed by the famous Baltic Surveys/The Gallup organization. The survey was ordered by the International Republican Institute (IRI) and funded by the USAID. Let’s remind that the Gallup Institute has conducted public polls for the period of October 27-November 3. According to the opinion of 25% of the respondents the economic condition of the country during the past three months has improved. The index is reduced by 4% compared the previous one. Just like during the polls the current polls results also show that the population is most concerned about unemployment, social-economic conditions and NKR conflict. The respondents have signified the democracy a little bit for this time. These polls are mainly conducted in the framework of the upcoming presidential elections in order to check the rating of the candidates. The interesting thing is that 2% of the respondents has signified the government change and the upcoming elections. This time the Gallup has conducted the polls in two lists of candidates. In one of the lists Raffi Hovhannisian’s name was included. Recently Hovhannisian’s Heritage party has revealed the results of the Gallup polls in the Aravot daily. According to those results the Raffi Hovhannisian’s rating has increased. In October 55% of the respondents gave a positive answer about the Heritage and now 57% are for that party. The rating of Hovhannisian in December was 63% and only 30% had a negative attitude to him. To the question, “who would you vote for if the elections were to take place next Sunday?” the majority of the respondents believes that Serzh Sargsyan is going to win. Thus, the Prime Minister still occupies the first place – 29%. The second that the third places occupy Raffi Hovhannisian with 12% and Artur Baghdasaryan. The votes of both of the candidates have increased compared to the results of October polls. In October 11% of the respondents said that they were going to vote for Artur Baghdasaryan and 9% for Hovhannisian. The ARF refused to give any information about the Gallup poll results. Vahan Hovhannisyan, the ARF candidate doesn’t agree that that Sargsyan has the highest rating among the presidential candidates and he has one of the lowest ones. The ARF candidates didn’t agree to give any more details about their own rating results. Vahan Hovhannisyan only believes the results of their own research. He also doesn’t believe that Levon Ter-Petrosyan has a 52% rating as his teammates claim. And if the ARF believes only their own results then the Republicans may believes their because according to the ARF research Serzh Sargsyan has a 60% rating. It’s quite understandable that politicians believe in polls only when they occupy a good rating in those. Vahan Hovhannisyan reminded us of the past Parliamentary elections, prior to which several polling organizations had conducted polls and the ARF ended up gaining 3-4 times more votes than what the pollsters have predicted. However, we shouldn’t forget that during the Parliamentary elections the citizens were voting for the proportional list of the ARF not the candidate Vahan Hovhannisyan. In this regard, let’s mention that even during the selection of a presidential candidate many of the ARF members were for Armen Rustamyan’s run. Thus, according to our information the rating of the ARF candidate Vahan Hovhannisyan in the Gallup polls occupies the 5th place with a 4% rating. He is followed by NDU chairman Vazgen Manukyan, Levon Ter-Petrosyan and Tigran Karapetyan. The next list of the Gallup with Raffi Hovhannisyan is quite interesting as well. According to that Serzh Sargsyan occupies the first place with a 35% rating. The second place occupies Artur Baghdasaryan – 13%, third place – Artashes Geghamyan (6%) and fourth place – Vahan Hovhannisyan with a 5% rating. These results are interesting in the aspect that the votes of the electorate of Raffi Hovhannisyan is distributed among Serzh Sargsyan, Vahan Hovhannisyan and Artur Baghdasaryan. This makes us grounds to believe that the electorate of the Heritage party on May 12 wasn’t a radical one. This means that his supporters are for constructive reforms and stability.