Social polls on the eve of elections

25/12/2007 Natasha HARUTYUNYAN

Over 1000 people participated in the polls conducted by the “Armenian Youth Union” NGO in Yerevan December 13-14. The respondents were asked four questions referring to the presidential elections. During the press conference held yesterday, member of the NGO Ashot Amiraghyan wrapped up the results of the polls and mentioned that very often students are interested in many matters, such as how the president is going to be, how will the elections proceed, etc. “That is the reason why we a group of active students has decided to conduct those polls. We don’t evaluate the polls as fully professional despite the fact that we have consulted with professional sociologists,” he said. The group of the pollsters also included students of the sociology department, together with whom we prepared questionnaires. The respondents were asked four questions:

1. Will you participate at the upcoming elections?
873 people gave a positive answer and 99 a negative answer, the others haven’t decided yet.

2. Which candidate would you ballot for if elections were held this Sunday?
Serzh Sargsyan 239
Vahan Hovhannissyan 133
Levon Ter-Petrosyan 127
Artur Baghdasaryan 84
Vazgen Manukyan 58
Artashes Geghamyan 39
Tigran Karapetyan 32
Aram Harutiunyan 3
Arman Melikyan 3
Against all 155

3. Which candidate would you ballot for if the candidate you preferred didn’t run in the elections?
Artur Baghdasaryan 116
Vazgen Manukyan 92
Vahan Hovhannissyan 80
Artashes Geghamyan 57
Serzh Sargsyan 56
Tigran Karapetyan 28
Levon Ter-Petrosyan 9
Aram Harutiunyan 7
Arman Melikyan 4
No one 424£

4.Which candidate would you vote against?
Levon Ter-Petrosyan 451
Serzh Sargsyan 195
Tigran Karapetyan 76
Artashes Geghamyan 70
Artur Baghdasaryan 28
Aram Harutiunyan 16
Vahan Hovhannissyan 16
Vazgen Manukyan 13
Arman Melikyan 8£

Member of the NGO Aramayis Hovhannisyan mentioned that for instance in Shengavit, Noubarashen and Erebuni communities Serzh Sargsyan gained most of the votes. Artur Baghdasaryan’s votes dominated in Nor Nork community and Vahan Hovhannisyan’s in Kentron. Ter-Petrosyan’s votes were equal in all communities. He mentioned that they are going to hold their next polls among students to find out their orientation about elections. “We are also planning to involve the youth wings of parties in this process,” said Amiraghyan.