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Groong: Week in Review

ANN/Groong

June 6, 2021

Guests

● Asbed Kotchikian

● Emil Sanamyan

Hosts

● Hovik Manucharyan

● Asbed Bedrossian

Introduction

Hello, and welcome to the Armenian News Network, Groong, Week in Review. This Week we’re going to talk about the following major topics:

● Kocharyan closes in on Pashinyan’s lead ahead of the snap election

● Pashinyan goes to Europe

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.

And

Emil Sanamyan, a senior research fellow at USC’s Institute of Armenian Studies specializing in politics in the Caucasus.

Topics This Week

Kocharyan closes in on Pashinyan’s lead

MPG, the main company doing polls during these elections released their regular update this week.

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Who'd you vote for this Sunday: (Apr -> May 28 -> June 6)

● CC: 27.2 -> 22.9 -> 22.4%

● Hayastan: 8.1 -> 17.5 -> 20.6%

● Prosperous: 1.8 -> 3.8 -> 4.2%

● Republic: 0.3 -> 2.8 -> 2.1%

● Pativ Unem: 1.1 -> 2.7 -> 3.9%

● Bright: 1.8 -> 2.3 -> 2.9%

If you take out those who said “None”, “Difficult to Respond” or “Refuse to Respond” and scale the remaining votes, one gets the following picture:

	May 28	May 28 (adj)	June 6	June 6 (adj)
CC	22.9%	38.9%	22.4%	35.9%
Hayastan	17.5%	29.8%	20.6%	33.0%
BHK	3.8%	6.5%	4.2%	6.7%
Pativ	2.7%	4.6%	3.9%	6.3%
Bright	2.3%	3.9%	2.9%	4.6%

What can we tell from the trends and dynamics of these polls?

Various opposition parties have cast doubt on the veracity of polls like this? How realistic are these polls and what could be the potential pitfalls in methodology that could lead to surprises on June 20?

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CC leads in villages, Hayastan in urban areas.

CC: ( Apr -> May -> June 6)

● - Villages: 34.9 -> 32.2 -> 31.8%

● - Cities: 25.8 -> 19.1 -> 19.4%

● - Yerevan: 22.5 -> 16.9 -> 15.1%

Hayastan:

● - Vil: 4.7 -> 9.5 -> 14.5%

● - Cities: 7.1 -> 19.4 -> 23.4%

● - EVN: 11.5-> 23.9 -> 24.6%

Just last week, while Hayastan led the Civil Contract party in Yerevan, it was neck and neck in regional cities. However, this week, it seems that Hayastan Dashinq surpassed Civil Contract in regional cities as well with a 23.4% to 19.4% lead.

Emil: We see both of the top contenders visiting the regions. What do you think are the different regional strategies of Civil Contract and Hayastan?

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Do you plan to participate in 6/20 elections? (Apr -> May 28 -> June 6)

● Definitely yes: 48.3 -> 57.3 -> 55.3%

● Likely yes: 14.4 -> 16.1 -> 11.9%

● Likely no: 20.2 -> 11.1 -> 10.6%

● Definitely no: 13.5 -> 14.0 -> 20.7%

● Difficult to respond: 3.7 -> 1.6 -> 1.5%

The intent to participate has dropped a little but nothing major.

========

The number of parties participating in these elections is staggering, especially considering that each one had to pay an AMD 10M deposit. What could explain the unprecedented number of parties participating?

Let’s just take stock of the facts based on the current poll:

● 3 parties/blocs are comfortably clearing the threshold so far (CC, Hayastan, BHK)

● Pativ Unem and Bright Armenia would not make the threshold of 7% and 5% respectively, but both are close.

All others, including the Hanrapetutyun/Republic party are currently far from their target threshold.

Is it too early to rule out all the other parties and potentially consider the 5 top parties that we have so far, or could there be drastic changes that prop up potential dark horse contenders? And if so, who do you think has a chance to catch up?

If we only consider the 5 parties/blocs mentioned so far, would it be fair to say that Civil Contract could potentially only form a coalition with Bright Armenia? And if that happens, Edmon Marukyan has said he’d refuse a coalition with Nikol Pashinyan as prime minister, so would that mean that we could see Edmon Marukyan as PM of a Civil Contract + Bright Armenia coalition?

Given today’s poll numbers, if Prosperous Armenia (BHK) and Hayastan Dashinq team up, it may be just enough to help form a coalition. Could a Kocharyan-Tsarukyan coalition be a foregone conclusion, or might there be surprises here?

Pashinyan goes to Europe

Earlier this week, Pashinyan made a 2-days trip to Paris and Brussels where he met with French President Macron as well as European Council President Charles Michel, among others. What can be said of the timing of this visit and the issues discussed with European officials? Do France or the EU have anything to offer to Armenia, diplomatically or otherwise?

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

Emil Sanamyan, Asbed Kotchikian, Nikol Pashinyan, Robert Kocharyan, Gagik Tsarukyan, Edmon Marukyan, Civil Contract, Hayastan Dashinq, Armenia Alliance, Prosperous Armenia, Bright Armenia, Barkavaj Hayastan, Lousavor Hayastan, Russia, EU, France, Elections, MPG polls, IRI polls,