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Introduction
Hello, and welcome to the
Armenian News Network Groong Week in
Review. This week we’ll be talking about the following topics from the
political scene in Armenia:
●
Newly Released IRI Poll Results [IRI]
[Armenpress]
[CivilNet]
●
Armen Grigoryan’s
Interview [CivilNet]
●
Snap On Snap Off [RFE/RL]
[RFE/RL]
[RFE/RL]
To talk about these issues, we have with us:
Asbed Kotchikian,
who is an associate professor of political science and international relations
at the American University of Armenia.
Emil Sanamyan, a senior research fellow at
USC’s Institute of Armenian Studies specializing in the politics of the
Caucasus, with a special focus on Azerbaijan.
And
Alen Zamanyan
who follows and has analyzed Armenian politics for over a decade.
Topics This Week
Newly Released IRI Poll
The results of a new nationwide poll by the
International Republican Institute (IRI) were published this past week. This is
a periodic poll supported by USAID funding.
The results of the poll contain some surprising
results and both the government and opposition camp have cherry-picked specific
pieces of data to support their own arguments.
What do we know about the IRI, why do they do
polls in Armenia? What can we say about the general trustworthiness of this
poll and what results did you find particularly memorable? What are the
vulnerabilities of this poll?
--
One of the questions asked in the poll was
around trust in institutions, and the most trusted institutions in Armenia are:
●
the army (73%)
●
the police (63%)
●
the Ombudsman Office (60%)
●
local authorities (56%)
●
the prime minister’s office (54%),
●
and the Armenian Apostolic Church (52%).
Meanwhile in a separate question, the prime
minister’s favorability rating was at 55% (29% very favorable + 26% somewhat
favorable). This is a drop from previous polls, but these numbers, especially
after the catastrophic losses from the war seem unintuitive.
Is there a
dissonance between the two questions above?
The poll was conducted in February, before Pashinyan’s conflict with the military. But, as things
stand today, the army, the Armenian Apostolic Church, and even the Ombudsman’s
Office seem to not be on Pashinyan’s friend list
anymore.
How might the events from the past few weeks
change the trust of institutions or Pashinyan’s
favorability rating?
The poll showed interesting differences based on
disaggregation categories. For instance, on the question of support for prime
minister, the favorability rating differed greatly based on community type and
education level.
For instance, based on community type, we see:
●
Yerevan: 41% (17% + 24%)
●
Urban: 60% (31% + 29%)
●
Rural: 66% (41% + 25%)
Based on education level:
●
Primary or secondary: 61% (39% + 22%)
●
Vocational: 71% (38% + 33%)
●
Higher: 43% (18% + 25%)
Are these results surprising? And what
conclusion can we draw from the above? How might the above influence
campaigning if snap elections are held?
Only 14% seem to prioritize the return of
missing and captive persons. How do we interpret this?
Question: What next steps do you believe should be the focus of the Government of Armenia in regard to the November 10 ceasefire agreement?
●
97% of Armenians believe that their government
should focus on domestic issues now, after the war in Artsakh,
●
92% say the government should focus on “ensuring the secure return or
Artsakh residents back to areas patrolled by Russian peacekeepers.”
● 14% prioritized return of captives and
missing persons.
Question: What is the most important problem our country is facing today?
●
Top
problems faced by the country:
○
political
instability (12%)
○
unemployment
(11%)
○ military reform (8%)
○
Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict (9%)
○ Return of captives (6%)
○ Corruption (1%)
Question: Please tell me which political party, if any, you would vote for if national parliamentary elections were held next Sunday.
● Top political organizations:
○ Civil Contract / My Step (Current
government) (33%)
○ Barkavaj Hayastan (3%)
Other Takeaways
● While the Prime Minister’s ratings have
declined by 22% since 2019, 55% of Armenians still hold a positive view of him.
● The top trusted institutions are: the army (73%), the police (63%), the Ombudsman Office
(60%), local authorities (56%), the prime minister’s office (54%), and the
Armenian Apostolic Church (52%).
● The most distrusted institutions:
political parties (73%), the National Assembly (64%), the president’s office
(60%), courts (57%), the Constitutional Court (55%), the cabinet of ministers
(53%), and the prosecutor’s office (53%).
● 74% of Armenians believe electoral
reforms are necessary to raise confidence in Armenian elections. (Note: Pashinyan
& My Step are pushing electoral reforms prior to the snap elections).
●
45% say the country is headed in the WRONG
direction; 31% say RIGHT direction.
●
50/50 divided between the optimists and
pessimists on the future of Armenia.
●
26% do not see their future in Armenia.
●
Approval of the Ombudsman office: 60%
●
Approval of the PM’s office: 55%
●
Approval of the President’s Office: 33%
●
Approval of the National Assembly: 32%
●
Approval of the fight against corruption: 42%
●
Biggest household concern: unemployment (28%)
None (24%) everything else in single figures.
●
51% named problems that are a consequence of the
war in Artsakh as the top problem facing the country. 76% named this as the top
or second issue.
●
85% believe the Ceasefire agreement should be
renegotiated.
●
56% believe there should be snap parliamentary
elections
○
62% say the government should be the caretaker
of snap elections
○
76% do not believe the transitional government
(presumably Vazgen Manukyan’s) should run the snap
elections
●
Party popularity is on slide 39: notably Lusavor Hayastan < 1%
○
Nearly 50% level of apathy (chose “None”)
●
Media - Slide 64 of the IRI PDF.
Armen Grigoryan Interview
On March 12, the chair of Armenia’s Security
Council, Armen Grigoryan, gave an interview to Civilnet which added several new pieces of detail on what
was taking place in Armenian government circles but also brought up many new
questions.
What is the role of the Security Council in
Armenia? How does it fit in the decision-making process on defense issues?
Was the key theme of the interview to “correct
the record” about Onnik Gasparyan.
Specifically, Grigoryan repeated several times that
Gasparyan never warned the Security Council to stop the war at any cost on the
4th day of the war. What impressions can we form?
Some interesting moments:
●
Mentioned that the Security Council had
determined on Oct 19 that Armenia should stop the war at all costs and hadn’t
met since. For 20 days the war continued and there was no new meeting of the
security council; during this time, Putin mentioned that Pashinyan
rejected an offer to keep Shushi under Armenian control (with the condition
that the Azeri population would have a right to return). Why?
●
Made references to Onnik
Gasparyan talking about Armenia using Smerches,
multiple times, even when that question was not asked.
●
Brushed off concerns around potential renewed
attack by Azerbaijan/Turkey (and blamed the opposition for fearmongering) and
said that Armenia should focus now on regional cooperation.
Snap On, Snap Off
After Prime Minister Pashinyan
lost the support of the Joint Chiefs of the Army, on Monday he came back and
announced that he’s again open to Snap Elections. If you recall, he had
previously announced that he was open to snap elections, then canceled it
claiming that there was no “popular demand” for it, but now we’re back on.
Pashinyan has laid
down some conditions, for example he wants to do a tactical resignation, but
first he wants all parties to sign a MOU to not nominate any PM candidates. Marukyan has agreed, but Gagik Tsarukyan
has refused. Barkavaj Hayastan, by the way, is a
member of the Homeland Salvation Movement of 17 plus parties calling for the
resignation of the prime minister.
Does Pashinyan truly
want early elections, or is this a political maneuver?
Regarding Pashinyan’s
demand to abstain from nominating any PM candidates: his parliamentary faction
has a majority in parliament counting more than 80 parliamentarians and could
easily secure a failure in any vote for a PM using only My Step MPs. Why does
he need preconditions?
--
President Armen Sarkissian had invited Nikol Pashinyan, My Step, the
parliamentary opposition as well as the Homeland Salvation Movement to
negotiations around the issue of early parliamentary elections. The meeting
didn't take place in that suggested format (even though Pashinyan
and the president met separately) due to lack of consensus on the agenda.
Edmon Marukyan from Bright Armenia accepted the offer and
indicated that their faction may comply with Pashinyan’s
demands to not nominate any candidate. This is a change in their position since
prior to Pashinyan’s conflict with the military, when
they had rejected this idea.
The Homeland Salvation Movement, which includes
the Republican Party, ARF, and Prosperous Armenia among others accepted the
proposal, however, with the precondition that “the meeting must be held in
parliament, publicly and broadcast live.”
The movement also re-stated their “roadmap”
towards a solution to the conflict, namely:
●
Resignation of Pashinyan
●
Temporary government
●
Snap parliamentary elections
Gagik Tsarukyan, Head
of Prosperous Armenia, reiterated these points separately in a press
conference.
Meanwhile the government has indicted Vazgen Manukyan, the leader of the Homeland Salvation
Movement, for inciting the violent overthrow of the government.
What do we make of the positioning of Bright
Armenia and Prosperous Armenia and their posturing? Tevan
Poghosyan had an interesting interview
with 168 where he predicted that we will be heading
towards snap parliamentary elections with Nikol at
the helm. He also said that this would be the worst possible outcome for
Armenia. Do you agree with this?
Wrap-up
That concludes our program
for This Week in Review episode. We
hope it has helped your understanding of some of the issues from the previous
week. We look forward to your feedback, and your suggestions for issues to
cover in greater depth. Contact us on our website, at groong.org,
or on our Facebook Page “ANN - Groong”,
or in our Facebook Group “Groong - Armenian News Network”.
Special
thanks to Laura Osborn for providing the music for our podcast. On behalf of
everyone in this episode, we wish you a good week. Don’t forget to subscribe to
our channels, Like our pages and follow us on social
media. Thanks for listening and we’ll talk to you next week.
Keywords
Armenia, Yerevan IRI, International Republication Institute, IRI Poll, Nikol Pashinyan, Armen Grigoryan, Edmon Marukyan, Gagik Tsarukyan, Elections, Early Elections, Snap Elections, My Step, Bright Armenia, Prosperous Armenia, ARF, Vazgen Manukyan, USAID,
Additional: Emil Sanamyan, Asbed Kotchikian,
Alen Zamanyan, Ceasefire, Ceasefire Agreement,
Syunik, POW, Prisoners,