Exit poll by Alliance civil initiative gives victory to Levon Ter-Petrossyan

2008-02-19 20:54:00

ArmInfo. Alliance civil initiative has conducted an exit poll at 100 polling stations. They have questioned 4,406 people. 3,550 of them (66%) agreed to answer.

The vice chairman of Alliance Gevork Melikyan says that …
474 people (15.5%) voted for Artur Bagdassaryan,
40 (1.3%) for Artashes Gegamyan,
38 (1.2%) for Tigran Karapetyan,
8 (0.2%) for Aram Haroutyunyan,
195 (6.4%) for Vahan Hovhannissyan,
90 (2.9%) for Vazgen Manukyan,
9 (0.2%) for Arman Melikyan,
1,084 (35.4%) for Serzh Sargsyan,
1,152 (37.7%) for Levon Ter-Petrossyan.

Melikyan says that it was an independent survey. They planned to question 0.2% of all voters - 2,300 people.

Meanwhile, other news agencies are quoting the Populus poll as well.

Armenian prime minister obtains 57% in presidential exit polls

21:03 | 19/ 02/ 2008

YEREVAN, February 19 (RIA Novosti) - Armenian Prime Minister Serzh
Sarkisyan has garnered 57.01% in presidential exit polls.

He is followed by Armenia’s first president Levon-Ter-Petrosyan with
17.04% and ex-parliamentary speaker Artur Bagdasaryan with 14.6%.

Vaan Ovannisyan, a deputy parliamentary speaker and a member of the
Dashnaktsutyun party’s bureau, came fourth with 5.98%. The remaining
five candidates received 1.6% of the vote.

The nationwide exit polls were conducted by Populus, a leading British
pollster, for Armenian television at 126 polling stations.

Populus has been pollster to a wide number of big clients, including
the BBC, The Times, and Britain’s leading parties. It gave an error
margin of 0.25% during the latest elections in the U.K.

Incidentally, important to note. RIA Novosti says that Sargsyan “garnered 57.01% in presidential exit polls.” That’s the correct way to phrase it, I think. However, Reuters have effectively declared Sargsyan the winner which is not right because only the CEC can do that, and not an exit poll.

However, while I am not inclined to believe exit polls conducted which aren’t under the name of a company that has a reputation to lose, it is also worth pointing out that an exit poll only represents a sample.

Ultimately, the figures that the CEC release are the only ones that matter combined with the verdict of international observers. Until then, I reserve judgement. However, I will say this.

While I think that Sargsyan could have obtained 35-40 percent in a fairly clean vote, something which others have also said here, I suspect the remainder of votes (if this is the case) were bought.

However, although this is a personal opinion from conversations with people I meet who admittedly are not selected in any scientific way, I don’t think Ter-Petrossian could attract anywhere near 54 percent of the vote.

Instead, and as with the recent presidential election in Georgia, I think the issue is whether or not reports of voting irregularities influenced the election enough to avoid a second round. I think this is the main issue. I certainly don’t think Ter-Petrossian polled more votes than Sargsyan.

Instead, I think that claims of vote falsification now need to be backed up by facts and evidence, appeals made to the courts and international observers, and if necessary, the vote should be annulled in any electoral precincts found to be at fault to such an extent that it has affected the outcome.

This is also as much part of the electoral process and now needs to be treated properly by all those concerned. On the other hand, if Ter-Petrossian did win the election then it’s quite simple. There should be significantly more than 30-40,000 people on the streets tomorrow.

Indeed, if the exit poll you quote is correct, I wouldn’t expect less than 100-200,000 by independent estimates rather than A1 Plus, RFE/RL or Ter-Petrossian’s team. Interestingly, the OSCE/ODIHR, PACE preliminary report will be presented tomorrow an hour after Ter-Petrossian rallies his people.

I think I’m waiting for then before making a judgment.

http://elections.a1plus.am/news/353/

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19.02.08 08:09

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