Gevorg Poghosyan, the president of the Armenian Sociological Association, explained during a conversation with us why there wasn’t much trust in public opinion polls in Armenia and they were sometimes perceived as rigged by the government, “Certainly it is a method of self-defense for the parties that don’t have high ratings and they don’t believe any research, because if they find out a month before the election that they will not cross the 5% margin, a question arises what the point in their participation is.”
As for the work of the Gallup sociological studies company, Mr. Poghosyan urged not to doubt the objectivity of the company, “This is a big international company and it operates in 12 countries and it has justified itself everywhere, I don’t think that Armenia is a special country, where Gallup deliberately changes numbers or changes its methodology to please the government… it is just a deception.” We inquired from Mr. Poghosyan how he would explain the improvement of the pro-government parties’ ratings and the decline of the opposition parties’ ratings, according to the latest research of Gallup, “Those who will vote for the leading two parties will certainly be pleased, because they will vote for the parties that will win.”
Arpine SIMONYAN
