Compared to 2007 the number of people, who consider the post of the mayor a political one, has decreased by two times. But half of the voters still consider the mayor’s post a political one. Moreover, 12% of the 50% prefers an oppositional mayor; 20% of them prefer a mayor from the government and only 16% a non-partisan mayor. These “truthful data” can be publicized only by the director of the Sociometer Aharon Adibekyan, who during his yesterday’s press conference claimed that he drew these conclusions based on objective and “independent” grounds. According to this research the ANC yields not only to the RPA but also the Prosperous Armenia. According to him 3 out of 10 respondents wish the victory of the governmental candidate, 2 out of 1o wish the victory of Prosperous Armenia and only 1 – the ANC. According to Adibekyan’s research 4 out of 10 respondents considers the RPA the solver of Yerevan problems; 2 prefer the Prosperous Armenia in this regard and 1 out of 10 believe the ANC. Only 1 out of 10 respondents doesn’t wish the victory of the RPA in the mayoral race; 0.5 – Prosperous Armenia; 2 – ANC. In the elections of the elderly council members 5 out of 10 believe in the victory of the RPA; 2 believe in the victory of the Prosperous Armenia; 1 – ANC, etc. “It would be expedient for the ANC to nominate the former mayor or community head in the leading position of their list,” reads the research report of Adibekyan. However, as Adibekyan is extremely “objective” he says that the government doesn’t understand that the use of the administrative resource harms their rating. Therefore, according to Adibekyan usually during campaigns the rating of the government falls and instead the rating of the opposition increases. And Adibekyan is sure that the use of the administrative resource really harms the governmental candidate. Adibekyan noted that tangible events took place in Yerevan: road construction, city cleaning, lightening, greening, etc, and they found out the evaluation of the public through the survey. The 2/3 of the population thinks that there are positive changes in the city, and 1/3 thinks the opposite. The answer of the people who said “I will not tell you” caused some difficulty for the pollsters but, according to Aharon Adibekyan “they know whom they will vote for but they don’t tell us. I can say by the example of the previous election that these people are going to vote for the opposition”, stated Adibekyan. In other words, the 23 percent of Yerevan residents will vote for Levon Ter-Petrosyan. And, there are people who have not decided yet, of course they are few but they except some financial encouragement beginning from asphalt work, bribes etc. In his report Adibekyan rated Beglaryan as the leading candidate in the race. Here Adibekyan even managed to brag by saying that compared to Gallup, which asks only one question (who would you vote for?) he asks questions about 20 parameters and analyzes the answers. By the way, Adibekyan’s report implied information only about the RPA, Prosperous Armenia and the ANC. Others were not there because he wasn’t ordered to survey them and those parties may have complained that information was publicized about them. Can we assume that the ANC ordered a survey as well? “No,” responded Adibekyan by mentioning that one of the clients is the RPA and added that he cannot mention the name of the other client. According to Adibekyan only these two parties are able to overcome the 7% barrier. According to Adibekyan the fact that the ARF become an opposition party lowered its chance of victory in the mayoral race. Adibekyan didn’t know how else the ARF can top its rating now. In general, according to his polls 30% of Yerevan residents is not interested in the mayoral election; 70% is and the majority of them doesn’t know about the elections. 65% of the voters considered the reforms of Yerevan during the last 2-3 years positive and the rest doesn’t see any positive change. Adibekyan’s polls also related to the global crisis. Thus, 2/3 of the respondents mentioned that they suffered from the crisis and 1/3 mentioned that they hadn’t suffered. But in general there was certain tension.
