“ACNIS ReView from Yerevan”. In recent days, Armenian media and social networks have been actively discussing a controversial story about sociological surveys conducted in Armenia from February 3–13 by the U.S. International Republican Institute (IRI). The story has sparked a strong wave of public interest. The reason is that the IRI is a fairly well-known research organization, and the main focus of the survey concerns public trust, essentially, the ratings of candidates for prime minister of Armenia ahead of the National Assembly elections scheduled for June 7. Notably, the survey results were summarized on February 13, while the material itself was published three weeks later, on March 6.
Moreover, the Speaker of the National Assembly, Alen Simonyan, deemed it necessary to present the results of the IRI survey on his social media page, creating the impression that he had exclusive control over the text. In a postscript he wrote, in particular: “Now let them tear themselves apart again, bang their heads against the wall, say that the regime is supposedly in panic, that they see the opposite picture, and comfort themselves with that.” The speaker’s somewhat incoherent remarks were directed at the Armenia Alliance, whose leader does not consider the survey data credible. The country’s second president, Robert Kocharyan, stated that sociological surveys conducted by his side revealed a completely different picture.
The fact that the leader of the ruling political force Civil Contract (CP) appears in the leading position in the survey table is viewed with skepticism by a number of social media users and representatives of various political circles. In essence, the credibility of the IRI study itself is being questioned. Unfortunately, Mr. Kocharyan did not present the data from the research conducted by his own specialists, so we do not have the opportunity to compare the findings. However, this is not a major problem, since the media contain numerous internal surveys whose conclusions differ only slightly from one another: Nikol Pashinyan’s rating in Armenia is reportedly catastrophically low, and therefore the text of the ten-day February survey was allegedly “edited.”
Let us briefly examine the “edited” version, since the real one either does not exist or is at least inaccessible to us. When asked which political party or alliance they would vote for if national elections were held next Sunday, 24% of respondents said they would support the Civil Contract party led by Nikol Pashinyan. The second most popular force was the Strong Armenia party (Mer Dzevov) led by Russian-Armenian businessman Samvel Karapetyan, with 9% support. Several other parties received smaller shares. The Armenia Alliance, which includes the Armenian Revolutionary Federation and is led by former president Robert Kocharyan, received about 3% support. Another 3% said they would vote for the Prosperous Armenia party led by businessman Gagik Tsarukyan. Meanwhile, 30% said they had not yet decided or found it difficult to answer, 9% refused to respond, and 8% said they would not participate in the elections. All remaining political forces received less than 1% of the vote. When the results are filtered to include only respondents who said they are very likely to vote, support for Civil Contract rises to 29%, while Strong Armenia receives 11%, Armenia Alliance and ARF — 4%, Prosperous Armenia — 2%.
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The actual survey data, which reportedly showed a sharp decline in trust toward Nikol Pashinyan, allegedly took the survey’s commissioners by surprise. According to the source, despite various propaganda tactics over the past year, including his daily gestures of declaring love by touching the thumbs and index fingers of both hands, his rating has hardly increased, remaining at a level considered unprecedentedly dangerous for the authorities. It could hardly have been otherwise when attempts are made to create the image of a winner out of a force that allegedly has no real rating, in order to convince the public that, in any case, Civil Contract will ultimately be elected. Meanwhile, according to various independent surveys, more than 70 percent of the population would not vote for Civil Contract or for Pashinyan personally.
According to observations by the “Zhoghovurd” newspaper, the situation is even bleaker among young people. Among those aged 18–35, about 70–75 percent either reject or are generally indifferent to political processes and, in particular, to the current authorities. Many young people do not trust Pashinyan, do not believe his promises, and cannot imagine their future under his leadership. The level of disillusionment has reached the point where many young citizens do not intend to participate in the National Assembly elections scheduled for June of this year. This deepening indifference and political marginalization is widely seen as evidence of a systemic crisis of trust.
