Which political forces do Armenians trust? Populus publishes survey returns

The European Friends of Armenia (EuFoA) published Tuesday its first ever internationally conducted Comparative Opinion Polls on socio-political issues and foreign relations in Nagorno Armenia and Karabakh.

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

The survey returns reveal 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.As seen from survey returns, Sargsyan has more supporters than the party he leads.

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).

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 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.

"It was particularly surprising for us to see the low level of information about the OSCE Minsk Group, which is so important for Armenia. The poll also shows the support of the Armenian people for measures leading to a peaceful solution of the Karabakh conflict, coupled with their distrust in measures which could affect the security of the Armenian population. This and a number of other questions should be very interesting for the OSCE summit in Astana" said Dr Michael Kambeck, Secretary General of EuFoA.

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, reads the report.

The authors of the survey further note that against the background of the global financial crisis, Armenians 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, says the document.