Gagik Tsarukian, Armenia’s Trump, leading in Parliamentary Election Polls

Armenian Businessman, leader of “Tsarukian” bloc during pre-elecition campaign

At least two competing opinion polls have shown that Armenia’s richest businessman Gagik Tsarukian’s election bloc named “Tsarukian” after him, is leading the race for the April 2 elections with 40-41% rating.

Opinion poll, released yesterday by KOG Institute and Demokratijos projektai shows that Tsarukyan bloc is far ahead with ith 40,4% public support.  The political force led by the Armenian oligarch is significantly ahead of the ruling Republican Party with its 19,4% support.
Meanwhile, the poll conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) estimated the support for Tsarkukian’s bloc at 41%, while the Republican party had around 39%.
Interestingly, Gagik Tsarukian is awfully like the US President Donald Trump not only because of being one of Armenia’s richest businessman, but also because of the way he is accusing the media for skewing his words and ‘fake news’-ing around.
I’ve drawn a table below to show the percentage points for all the political forces according to the two studies.

Parties (sorted according to the ballot) European Pollsters VCIOM
1 WAY OUT PARTIES ALLIANCE 4.1 8
2 FREE DEMOCRATS PARTY 1.7 1
3 ARMENIAN RENESANCE PARTY 3.9 3
4 TSARUKYAN PARTIES ALLIANCE 40.4 41
5 CONGRESS-PPA PARTIES ALLIANCE 3.15 2
6 REPUBLICAN PARTY OF ARMENIA 19.4 39
7 COMMUNIST PARTY OF ARMENIA 0.9 1
8 OHANYAN-RAFFI-OSKANYAN PARTIES ANLLIANCE 8.7 3
9 ARMENIAN REVOLUTIONARY FEDERATION DASHNAKCUTYUN 3.8 4

PS: If we believe the pollsters, Armenia is heading towards its own Brexit, although from what we’ve seen of the Armenian opinion polls in the past, these numbers should be taken with a ton of salt.  

 

Artur Papyan

Journalist, blogger, digital security and media consultant

3 Comments

  1. […] of the RPA, Tsarukyan has been accused of bribing voters. In recent polls, Tsarukyan’s alliance has outperformed the ruling RPA, an unusual feat in the post-Soviet context. If he wins in April, it would end almost two decades […]

  2. […] that the party will probably resort to a coalition, it is undoubtedly a more favourable result than what was predicted by surveys immediately before the election[3].  Notably, the opinion polls released at the end of March by […]

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