– The opposition representatives are sure that the United States sent a clear message to the authorities by preventing the possibility of organizing exit polls during the elections, and this message means that they supported the opposition’s concerns that the authorities will not let the elections be fair. In your opinion why did the US eventually decide not to organize exit poll?
– The US Republican institute informed that they were ready to organize exit poll, which is usually done in many countries. The government of Armenia, represented by PM Serzh Sagsyan, agreed to invite them to organize exit poll in Armenia. After that different opinions were discussed and the issue of professionalism and fairness of the exit poll was under question. The opposition claimed that not only the results of the exit poll, but also the social surveys were not fair and might be a result of cooperation with the government. The opposition has made such estimations, but I have my opinion, which is different. Our electoral system and the parliamentary elections were to prove that we have reached a point enabling us to prevent all electoral violations. Any violations are excluded, it is impossible to make electoral violations. If anyone says that there is an electoral process where it is possible to make violations, I will argue to prove the vice versa. In other words, such announcements on the part of the opposition are just negative campaign. The problems is that those political powers, which have a scenario of organizing political shows after elections will not be able to do that as if the results if the exit polls and the CEC information coincide no one will believe them. Please imagine that after compiling all the information through the three levels of electoral commissions the CEC publishes information, which is the same as the results of exit polls. In such case it will be very hard for those political powers since they will be faced with a difficult situation and will not be able to justify their critics and bring reasonable grounds. I think that the final goal of their complaint was to prevent organizing exit poll in Armenia so that they can put the outcome of the elections under question easily. All candidates know and feel who is going to win, thus they are trying to undermine the process of elections from now. This is the reason why they did not agree with the idea of organizing exit poll. The US embassy has clearly stated in its statement published recently that it was not possible to provide such process satisfying all the parties during a short period of time. They also expressed concerns that after the elections it was possible that the results of exit poll might support to start some processes in Armenia. This is the idea why they gave up with their idea to organize exit poll.
– The US has very good experience in organizing exit poll. Do you really believe in their explanation saying that they could not provide a process satisfying all the parties within a short period of time?
– If a country wants to conduct some activities in another country, there may be only one purpose which is supporting that country to make the process in that country transparent so that the society believes in the results of those processes. However, if they want to conduct some activities, which will be accepted differently by different political powers, there is no need to do that any more. In other words, if their activities will not reach the goals they have, but will bring to other processes after the elections, it means that the US government has made a good decision. Yes, they were not able to work out a new methodology, which would satisfy all the parties in a short period of time.
– They said that Gevorg Poghosyan, who had to be the responsible person for organizing exit poll, was pro-government, thus the results and the process would not be fair and would support the authorities. Don’t you think they have sufficient reasons to complaint? Couldn’t they appoint another neutral person to be responsible for conducting exit poll?
– The problem is not in personalities. If another person was in charge of that process, the approach would be the same not depending on anything. If the opposition wants to organize exit poll and the entire process only with participation of foreigners, it is impossible. No country will agree to send too many people to Armenia to organize exit poll. Besides that, they would need Armenian interpreters to work with them. In such case the opposition would claim that the interpreters are supporting the government and are doing wrong translations. In a word, if you want to find reasons to blame someone, you can always find. Now they say that Poghosyan represents the government, tomorrow they will say the same about other people too. In other words, this problem has political motives and persons don’t matter here. The opposition is not interested in organizing exit poll since they are afraid that after publishing the results their scenario will fail after the elections.