2008 Presidential Election Monitor
Via Unzipped, another poll, but this time from a pro-opposition newspaper, shows the prime minister, Serzh Sarkisian, clearly in the lead if the presidential election was held two weekends ago. However, it also shows that he does not have enough support to win in a first round, and also that as mentioned on this blog time and time again, the majority of the population are actually undecided. I’d probably add confused as well, but anyway.
According to the telephone poll commissioned by Aravot newspaper and conducted by APR group during 28 November – 1 December 2007 among 663 Yerevan residents, if elections were to be conducted in “coming Sunday” (2 December), the votes may have the following distribution:
Serj Sargsyan 19.2% Levon Ter-Petrosyan 9.2% Vazgen Manukyan 4.4% Artur Baghdasaryan 2.1% Vahan Hovhannisyan 2% Artashes Geghamyan 1.4% Undecided 31.5% Against everyone 18.7% Based on my subjective understanding of the situation, these numbers (especially re Serj Sargsyan and Levon Ter-Petrosyan) seem close to reality, as for today. The way ‘undecided’ will vote, would determine the outcomes of the elections. They, in turn, may be influenced by the choice of other respected politicians not participating (unfortunately!) in the election per se (Raffi Hovhannisyan), and redistribution of votes for the second round of elections, which is inevitable.
Although the rating for the prime minister is considerably lower than one which put him further ahead with 31.9 percent of the vote a month ago, the fact is that the former first president, Levon Ter Petrosian, isn’t as popular as his supporters, including those in the media, suggest. As has also been mentioned on this blog, and as Unzipped concludes, a lot will be dependent on who figures such as Raffi Hovannisian end up supporting, and also on the election campaign itself.
For example, none of the other candidates have launched their campaigns while Ter Petrosian has been campaigning since September, and some would argue that Sarkisian has in fact been campaigning since the parliamentary election in May through constant media attention on his duties. Meanwhile, some other newspapers — both pro-opposition and pro-government — contend that the population is not interested in a colored revolution.
Pro-government pollster Gevorg Poghosian assures “Hayots Ashkhar” that there will be no post-election “color revolution” in Armenia because Armenians are not enthusiastic about “revolutionary changes.” “The people want a continuous development and progress,” he says. “Our people stand for slow but steady reforms and are against upheavals.” Poghosian says voters will not back Levon Ter-Petrosian in droves because he “regards Turkey and Azerbaijan as Armenia’s main economic partners.” “The people do not want that and do not consider the proposed way of solving problems to be the best.”
“Azg” likewise contends that many in Armenia want “change but no revolution.” “That is, a natural fear of instability forces a huge section of the population to continue to defend the current authorities and fear that the new rulers would start from destroying things,” says the paper. It claims that most Armenians think Ter-Petrosian and his allies are keen to take revenge on those who forced them out of power nearly ten years ago.
In other news, the government has said it will invite observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to monitor the vote. Actually, this is really only a formality, but worth a mention anyway. It remains to be seen whether restrictions on their numbers and activities as proposed by Russia, Armenia and other less than democratic CIS republics will be implemented or not.
- Published:
- 12.11.07 / 10pm by Onnik
- Category:
- Armenia, Armenia Presidential Election 2008, Candidates, OSCE, Opinion Polls, Voting
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