Hye Sharzhoom Armenian Action
Photo: ASP Archive
Arshak Abelyan
Staff Writer
One of the biggest challenges for the future of Armenia is the uncertainty of the leadership in the country following the Artsakh war in 2020. In the case of the Armenian political sphere, the solution can be simply labeled as unique.
Dr. Nerses Kopalyan, an assistant professor-in-residence of Political Science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas gave a lecture on September 2, 2021, entitled, Democratic Resilience Amidst Security Crisis: Armenia’s Political Climate After the 2020 Artsakh War, to discuss his most recent project he undertook in Armenia which attempts to analyze this uncertainty. This project consisted of polling which aimed at conducting a pre-election survey on the 2021 Parliamentary snap-elections in the Republic of Armenia.
In an attempt to understand how Armenia’s post-velvet democracy has withstood the adversities it has faced following the most recent military conflict with Azerbaijan, Dr. Kopalyan utilized his research and observational assessments from his surveys to provide the audience an answer to the following question, “How did the incumbent Prime Minister, and his Civil Contract Part, whose Government lost a war, and committed a cardinal sin of Armenian politics, that of losing land, manage such an electoral success?”
Dr. Kopalyan stated that during the process of collecting content, he drew on four general explanatory variables: burgeoning democratic culture, increased citizen trust in political and state institutions, legacy of the Velvet Revolution and democratic elections, and an “electorally” weak opposition.
“The empirical findings demonstrate a robust support for democratization of Armenian political culture during the post velvet stage… one that has become part of an enduring cultural syndrome,” said Dr. Kopalyan. In one of the IRI surveys that were released, Dr. Kopalyan focused on two results from questionnaires posed to respondents. One asked if democracy is the best form of government and 48% answered positively. Whereas, the following question asked if the respondents are satisfied with Armenia’s democracy, only 30% responded positively and 63% responded without satisfaction. Reflecting on the results of the elections and his analysis of the data, Dr. Kopalyan stated that this dissatisfaction surprisingly “did not translate to votes for the non-democratic parties.”
Under the variable of increased citizen trust in political and state institutions, Dr. Kopalyan stated that institutional trust was almost “non-existent” in the pre-Velvet political culture. However, he states that this changed during “the post-Velvet stage as extensive data demonstrates an exponential increase in institutional trust and at this time we have seen shared clusters of democratic attitudes and norms become embedded in Armenia’s political culture.”
“The legacy of the Velvet Revolution has remained persistent in limiting the capa-bilities of the opposition even after the ceasefire and all the security crises that Armenia has been facing,” stated Dr. Kopalyan. While it can be said that the legacy of the revolution placed Pashinyan’s regime in a favorable position, Dr. Kopalyan also added that the other candidates for Prime Minister had another obstacle that they were not able to overcome; the stigma of being connected with the previous regime.
Survey data also showed that the perception of the most notable candidates, such as Nikol Pashinyan, Serzh Sargsyan, and Robert Kocharyan had significant disparities. For example, Kocharyan was viewed as one of the least honest and most corrupt candidates. On the other hand, Nikol Pashinyan was viewed as the most honest candidate.
“Although Kocharyan was considered to be far more competent than Pashinyan right, this did not matter because he clearly suffered from a crisis of credibility,” said Dr. Kopalyan. “… citizens considered candidate X right to be very competent, but they chose candidate Y because they trusted candidate Y exponentially more and so trust was the defining factor of credibility.”
While perception of candidates played a great role, the demographics of class and education level played another factor in Nikol Pashinyan’s success. As the surveys indicated, Kocharyan’s supporters held higher-level educational degrees, while most of Pashinyan’s voter base held either high school diplomas or vocational degrees. Dr. Kopalyan added that this is a “very clear indicator that Pashinyan’s lower middle class and lower-class support was pretty much going up against Kocharyan’s upper middle class.” There also appeared to be a correlation between class and population within the provinces. Most less affluent and poor areas within the country voted for Pashinyan.
The province with the closest results came from the most affluent province, Yerevan, which still ended up going to Pashinyan. Even regions with the most insecure borders with Azerbaijan such as Gegharkunik and Syunik all supported Pashinyan.
Dr. Kopalyan’s pre-election polling data has provided us with new insight. In his final remarks, Dr. Kopalyan stated, “Citizens still tend to place trust in what they consider to be an honest yet relatively incompetent leadership over the alternative which may have perceptions of competence but suffers from a severe crisis of credibility.”