Competition for votes is becoming stronger. The candidates are using all possible mechanisms for this purpose and also threatening with the names of Putin and Bush during the campaign.
Minimum 6 candidates out of the nine candidates say that they are sure in their victory. Such announcements are first of all made for the purpose of psychological influence on their team members. However, there are things that the candidates can’t change even if they have one month to campaign. One of the facts to prove this standpoint is that Tigran Karapetyan’s “People’s” party lost the last parliamentary elections. This politician has unlimited access to his TV channel and campaigning on TV is considered to be one of the most influential ones. However, it doesn’t help him win. The experience shows that almost in all post-Soviet states oppositions are stronger in capitals than in regions. The recent elections in Georgia are to prove this fact. Even Putin, whose rating reaches 80%, is not so popular in Moscow. Armenia is not an exception either. The Armenian opposition leaders know this fact very well and the incidents of 1996 were a good lesson for the government of those times, which is an opposition power led by ex-president Levon Ter-Petrosyan now. As experienced politicians they also understand that they are weak in the regions. They are weak especially in the former biggest production cities such as Gyumri, Vanadzor, Hrazdan, Charentsavan, Abovyan, Gavar, Kapan, Kajaran. It is natural because the biggest companies in those cities were privatized during Ter-Petrosyan’s tenure and thus due to some known reasons those factories are not operated, as a result of which thousands of citizens have lost their jobs. It doesn’t matter whether it was Ter-Petrosyan’s fault or no. This was evident during Ter-Petrosyan’s visit to Hrazdan and Charentsavan, after which, according to our information, Ter-Petrosyan complained about the work of his campaign managers in those cities.
According to an article published at www.armtoday.info, the title of which was “Russian Mass Media about Armenian elections”, writes the following: “According to the results of recent polls, the prime-minister has 18% in Yerevan, and the former president has by three time less percentage. (According to surveys conducted by American organization “Gallup” during last month, Serzh Sargsyan received 29% and he was the leading candidate in Armenia, but Levon Ter-Petrosyan couldn’t even occupy the fifth place). About half of the voters in Yerevan haven’t decided whom to vote for yet,” writes armtoday.info.
It seems that the opposition has more votes in Yerevan. A question originates: which of the opposition powers has the most number of votes in Yerevan? The problem is that the experience has shown that always when the opposition doesn’t have a joint candidate, the votes of the citizens supporting the opposition are divided between different opposition powers. These elections will be like that too. It is more likely to happen also due to the fact that ARF is “playing” some opposition games too, which I think will help them get more votes. It happened during the elections of 2007 too. If we also take into consideration the votes to be given to populist Arthur Baghdasaryan, experienced Vazgen Manukyan, song and poem lover Tigran Karapetyan, always oppositionist Artashes Geghamyan, it will become clear that Ter-Petrosyan does not have so many votes in Yerevan either.