Armenians generally positive about direction of their country

November 23, 2010 - 13:34 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - European Friends of Armenia (EuFoA) is publishing the Armenia poll of the first ever internationally conducted “Comparative Opinion Polls in Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh on Socio-Political Issues and Foreign Relations.”

The poll in Armenia contains questions about Armenia’s internal situation, Turkey, Nagorno Karabakh, the EU, the OSCE and other international players relevant for Armenia.

The fieldwork for this poll was carried out between 15 and 18 October 2010, comprised 1208 face-to-face interviews in all regions of Armenia and has an error margin of 2.87%.

The reports says that Armenians are generally positive about the direction of their country but while largely supporting President Sargsyan they are much less positive about the political leadership at large. Half of all Armenians think that the country is going in the right direction and only a third think it is going in the wrong direction, and the majority of people from all demographic backgrounds think this is the case. This is positive compared with many other countries: in the United States, for example, less than one-in-three respondents typically think their country is going in the right direction, and in the UK around 40% do so.

Much of this positivity is due to some of the specific improvements that Armenians say have taken place over the past five years. In particular they think Armenia has developed its infrastructure, security and education, and overall they think the quality of life has improved modestly. However, they think there has been limited progress in democracy and very little progress in the fight against corruption. Against the background of the global financial crisis, they also think that there has been little progress in the economy. Since unemployment is overwhelmingly the issue that most concerns Armenians, the perception that the economy has not developed much over the last ten years results in a quarter of Armenians thinking that the government doesn’t represent them at all and a further 59% thinking that it only somewhat represents them.

Serzh Sargsyan is still the politician most people would vote for if there were a Presidential election. He has nearly three times the support of the next strongest candidate, Gagik Tsarukyan (10%), and the majority of people in all age groups say they would vote for him – though his support is stronger among older voters than among younger ones. However, while President Sargsyan may be the most supported politician more people say they don’t know who they would vote for, or that they wouldn’t vote for anybody (together more than a third of people say this).

Serzh Sargsyan appears, however, to be more popular than his party – something which is true of many leaders around the world. Slightly more people say their first choice in a parliamentary election would be for Prosperous Armenia (26%) than the Republican Party of Armenia (21%). Support for the Republican Party is fairly even across different age-groups, but support for Prosperous Armenia is much higher among younger voters than older ones and among those with lower levels of education, whereas those with higher education are much more likely to vote for the Republican Party. 7% of Armenians would vote for the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, 4% for the Country of Laws party and 3% for the Armenian National Congress. There are some politicians and parties that a number of Armenians say they will never vote for. More than a quarter (27%) say they would never vote for Levon Ter-Petrosyan while 13% say they would never vote for Artur Baghdasaryan or Serzh Sargsyan. Just under a fifth of Armenians would never vote for the Country of Laws (Orinats Yerkir) Party, 13% would never vote for the Armenian National Congress, and 10% each say they wouldn’t vote for the Republican Party of Armenia or the Armenian Revolutionary Federation. In contrast, only 3% say they would never vote for Prosperous Armenia – a strikingly low figure.