“Serzh Sargsyan is in the leading place among the pro-government candidates with 54.3% and in the opposition camp, Gagik Tsarukyan, the leader of the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) is in the leading place with 8.9%,” sociologist Aharon Adibekyan, the director of the Sociometer center, presented the results of the research on the upcoming presidential election in Armenia conducted by them during a conversation with journalists today.
The center conducted a poll on September 15, 16 and 21, 22 among 3250 active voters of all regions in equal proportions regarding the gender, age, education and place of residence. According to the data of the center’s poll, chances of the other probable candidates in the opposition camp are as follows – Raffi Hovhannisyan 1.8%, Levon Ter-Petrossian 0.6%, Vahan Hovhannisyan 1.0%, Armen Rustamyan 0.1%. www.aravot.am has gotten comments on the presented data from Professor Gevorg Poghosyan, the president of the Armenian Sociological Association and a PhD in sociology. He stated, “At this point, it is too early to make public any data, since researches have shown that our electorate mobilizes in the last one-two months. And we will have the real picture when candidates are announced and more so, after roughly a month of election campaign, when people will eventually be able to really make up their minds, certainly those who are making up their minds. Conducting and making public such public opinion polls are nothing more than a means to attract the public’s attention. All the same, they cannot show the real picture now.”
According to the research conducted by A. Adibekyan’s center, G. Tsarukyan is a “kind leader.” We inquired of G. Poghosyan whether researches conducted by them had yielded such a result. He replied, “We don’t ask such questions, in that case, one should ask whether the others are also kind, sweet, dry, sour… one should conduct a separate research for that, the meaning of which is incomprehensible. I don’t understand who orders Aharon to conduct such a research these days. Sociology is rather expensive; I don’t think that people would do it at their own expense. On the other hand, no one, no party would have ordered a research so early. And if he wanted to conduct such a poll himself, it requires very big expenses and those are meaningless expenses. One can conduct it once a year, but doing it several times is suspicious.”
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Mr. Poghosyan didn’t comment on the numbers presented by A. Adibekyan and added, “I don’t even want to comment on the numbers, since they are premature. Perhaps, they reflect
the opinions of a small part of the society, but one will be able to find out the society’s opinion later.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
