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Hrant Mikaelian - US-Iran Talks, Orban Loses, Armenia, Polls | Ep 531, Apr 12, 2026

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Groong Week in Review - April 12, 2026

In this episode, we examine a fast-moving regional and political landscape, from the collapse of the US-Iran talks in Islamabad and the threat of a new naval blockade, to Viktor Orban’s election loss in Hungary and what it may signal for Armenia and the wider region. We also dig into new polling from Armenia, including public views on security, the Iran war, free speech, voter turnout, and party support ahead of the 2026 elections. Along the way, we look at the Abkhaz railway as a possible alternative trade route, questions around TRIPP and Armenia’s growing dependence on Azerbaijan and Turkey, and what the latest numbers may reveal about the strength, weakness, and strategy of Armenia’s opposition.

Topics: 

  • US-Iran Talks in Pakistan
  • Orban Loses Hungary Elections
  • Armenian Parliamentary Elections
  • Polls: MPG, IRI, ARAR, EVN

Guest: Hrant Mikaelian

Hosts:

  • Hovik Manucharyan
  • Asbed Bedrossian

Episode 531 | Recorded: April 14, 2026

SHOW NOTES: https://podcasts.groong.org/531

VIDEO: https://youtu.be/ZzhV5xsXFks

#Armenia #IranWar #ArmenianPolitics #HungaryElections #ArmeniaPolls


Subscribe and follow us everywhere you are: linktr.ee/groong

Asbed (00:00:04):

Hello, everyone.

Asbed (00:00:05):

Welcome to Groong's Week in Review for April 12, 2026.

Asbed (00:00:08):

Today,

Asbed (00:00:09):

we're going to talk about the U.S.

Asbed (00:00:10):

and Iran negotiations in Pakistan,

Asbed (00:00:13):

Viktor Orbán's loss in the Hungarian elections,

Asbed (00:00:16):

and the most recent MPG poll,

Asbed (00:00:18):

as well as the Armenian elections.

Asbed (00:00:20):

So we're talking with Hrant Mikaelian,

Asbed (00:00:22):

an interdisciplinary researcher in Yerevan in social sciences.

Asbed (00:00:26):

Hello, Hrant. Welcome back to the Groong podcast.

Hrant (00:00:29):

Hello, Asbed. Hello, Hovik.

Hrant (00:00:31):

Thank you for having me.

Hovik (00:00:33):

Welcome, Hrant.

Hovik (00:00:35):

So,

Hovik (00:00:36):

essentially, we're still in the two-week ceasefire period,

Hovik (00:00:38):

but the U.S.-Iran talks in Islamabad have broken down,

Hovik (00:00:43):

and Trump has essentially answered or escalated by announcing a naval blockade of

Hovik (00:00:48):

Iranian ports that started on Monday,

Hovik (00:00:52):

April 13th.

Hovik (00:00:53):

few thought that the war was truly over including I think everyone over here,

Hovik (00:00:58):

but there was still hope of an off-ramp and instead Washington is coming in with

Hovik (00:01:03):

ultimatums and Iran is hardening its red lines and the chance for a negotiated exit

Hovik (00:01:09):

looks as weak as ever.

Hovik (00:01:12):

So the quick question I have is how do you read what happened in Islamabad and is

Hovik (00:01:18):

there still a hope for

Hovik (00:01:21):

some kind of a resolution,

Hovik (00:01:22):

a negotiated resolution to this while this ceasefire is still ongoing?

Hrant (00:01:27):

Frankly speaking, I see a very low credibility of peace chance right now.

Hrant (00:01:34):

And there are at least two major reasons.

Hrant (00:01:39):

And it's difficult to say which one is more important.

Hrant (00:01:43):

The reason number one is that there is a very strong disruptor of peace.

Hrant (00:01:49):

And it is Israeli leadership who is Benjamin Netanyahu, who has reportedly called J.D.

Hrant (00:01:57):

Vance, talked to him and discussed.

Hrant (00:02:02):

And not only that,

Hrant (00:02:03):

of course, he has several times struck Lebanon with very brutal attack on civilians too.

Hrant (00:02:13):

creates all the possibilities for continuing the war.

Hrant (00:02:18):

So he does whatever is possible and many Israeli politicians thought that this

Hrant (00:02:23):

deal,

Hrant (00:02:24):

especially that it did not include Israel,

Hrant (00:02:28):

is not good for Israel.

Hrant (00:02:30):

And that's why they are disrupting this deal.

Hrant (00:02:33):

And it is a very important reason why it doesn't work.

Hrant (00:02:36):

Another reason is that

Hrant (00:02:40):

As of now, both US, I mean Trump and Iranian leadership are killing themselves in a corner.

Hrant (00:02:50):

So they need to somehow win in this situation,

Hrant (00:02:54):

especially Trump,

Hrant (00:02:55):

since the ceasefire seemed to be more beneficial to Iranians,

Hrant (00:03:01):

since the attacker was the United States and Israel.

Hrant (00:03:04):

So if they do not succeed, this means that Iranians are somehow winning.

Hrant (00:03:10):

despite all the suffers they undertook.

Hrant (00:03:13):

But politically, they are on the winning side and they are dictating their terms.

Hrant (00:03:22):

And we have seen how Americans started dictating their terms too.

Hrant (00:03:27):

So the position with which

Hrant (00:03:31):

J.D. Vance came out was either take what we're suggesting

Hrant (00:03:38):

Or there will be a war.

Hrant (00:03:40):

So it's ultimatum.

Hrant (00:03:42):

This means that both sides see themselves as a side which has a right to dictate the terms.

Hrant (00:03:51):

So in these conditions, it's hard to imagine that there will be a negotiated agreement.

Hrant (00:03:56):

Although I would say that at least there is a second or one and a half track which

Hrant (00:04:01):

is still ongoing.

Hrant (00:04:02):

Obviously, there are negotiations, discussions, talks and so on.

Hrant (00:04:07):

But politically, situation is not ready for peace.

Hrant (00:04:10):

And what else are we observing is that U.S.

Hrant (00:04:14):

is intensively rearming itself and Israel,

Hrant (00:04:18):

obviously before the second round.

Hrant (00:04:21):

So what Trump found out was that Iranian leadership did not collapse and it started

Hrant (00:04:28):

running out of ammunition and weaponry,

Hrant (00:04:31):

which it needed to attack Iran and the

Hrant (00:04:36):

personal which he had in the region was not sufficient.

Hrant (00:04:41):

They started moving more personal,

Hrant (00:04:42):

more ammunition and so on,

Hrant (00:04:43):

but it was not sufficient to because the channels are not that wide and the supply

Hrant (00:04:49):

lines are very long and many countries refuse to participate.

Hrant (00:04:53):

So there is a bridge and we have seen through some pictures from flight radar that

Hrant (00:05:00):

there is very intense

Hrant (00:05:02):

intense supply through UK, then Eastern Europe, and then the Gulf countries.

Hrant (00:05:11):

And I assume that there is a preparation for the second round.

Hrant (00:05:15):

Maybe US is preparing for the limited ground strike.

Hrant (00:05:18):

So that's what I expect.

Hrant (00:05:20):

And maybe in one week or maybe even later,

Hrant (00:05:23):

when they will gather all forces,

Hrant (00:05:24):

they will try it again.

Asbed (00:05:27):

OK, well, so that's where we stand with Iran.

Asbed (00:05:29):

Let's talk a little bit about Hungary,

Asbed (00:05:31):

where over the weekend,

Asbed (00:05:33):

the prime minister for the past 16 years,

Asbed (00:05:35):

Viktor Orbán and his ruling Fidesz party lost the parliamentary elections to Peter

Asbed (00:05:41):

Magyar and his Tisza party.

Asbed (00:05:43):

Orbán was a populist nationalist character who often frustrated the EU's

Asbed (00:05:47):

anti-Russian foreign and economic policies,

Asbed (00:05:50):

yet sided strongly with dictators like Aliyev,

Asbed (00:05:53):

Erdogan and Netanyahu.

Asbed (00:05:55):

Now,

Asbed (00:05:56):

Orbán's legacy with Armenia is doubly tainted with the axe murder of Lieutenant

Asbed (00:06:01):

Gurgen Markarian by Azeri Ramil Safarov.

Asbed (00:06:04):

They were together at a conference in Budapest.

Asbed (00:06:07):

Safarov was subsequently tried and jailed and later inexplicably released by Orbán

Asbed (00:06:13):

to Azerbaijan,

Asbed (00:06:15):

leading to a breaking of diplomatic ties between Armenia and Hungary.

Asbed (00:06:20):

You would not be surprised to know that Pashinyan's shameless government quietly

Asbed (00:06:24):

re-established ties with Orbán,

Asbed (00:06:26):

primarily to kowtow for favors with both the EU and Aliyev at a time when Pashinyan

Asbed (00:06:31):

was trying to make compromises and gain favors with them.

Asbed (00:06:35):

In the U.S., Orbán was a darling of the MAGA movement,

Asbed (00:06:39):

J.D. Vance, Trump,

Asbed (00:06:40):

and even once spoke at the CPAC convention,

Asbed (00:06:43):

which is a convention basically for conservatives in America,

Asbed (00:06:47):

which is quite unusual because foreign leaders don't usually come to that

Asbed (00:06:52):

convention to address the Americans.

Hovik (00:06:54):

I believe Hungary even paid fees for holding that convention.

Asbed (00:06:59):

Pretty amazing, yeah.

Asbed (00:07:01):

So, Hrant, how will Orbán's loss affect the foreign policy of Hungary,

Asbed (00:07:05):

especially as it concerns our region?

Hrant (00:07:08):

Well,

Hrant (00:07:09):

Orbán was trying to pursue his own foreign policy and to pursue his foreign

Hrant (00:07:17):

political interests as he saw those.

Hrant (00:07:22):

And he was doing that extremely hard line.

Hrant (00:07:28):

And we know it's not welcomed in the EU.

Hrant (00:07:31):

so he was trying to you know gain whatever is possible for example there was a

Hrant (00:07:36):

publication that Aliyev gave him a loan of $300 million in exchange of

Hrant (00:07:44):

releasing Ramil Safarov so he was trying to acquire as much resources as possible

Hrant (00:07:50):

for Hungary and for himself as well and we know his relatives also became

Hrant (00:07:56):

billionaires so

Hrant (00:08:00):

Let's say he was a successful version of Trump.

Hrant (00:08:03):

Much younger, much smarter, and much better thought, but with much less resources.

Hrant (00:08:13):

So that's what he was.

Hrant (00:08:14):

And first of all, given that he is too long in Hungarian politics.

Hrant (00:08:19):

And second, he came to a very strong conflict with the European Brussels institutions.

Hrant (00:08:29):

he got very little chance to be re-elected.

Hrant (00:08:32):

Of course, Trump and his administration supported him.

Hrant (00:08:37):

But EU, the Brussels, were strictly against and they have more effect on Hungarian politics.

Hrant (00:08:44):

So this is one important difference,

Hrant (00:08:47):

because on one hand we have Pashinyan,

Hrant (00:08:49):

who has support both from US and from Brussels,

Hrant (00:08:53):

and we have Orbán,

Hrant (00:08:54):

who had support from US but did not have support from Brussels,

Hrant (00:08:58):

rather the opposite.

Hrant (00:09:00):

So there is a difference here.

Hrant (00:09:03):

So foreign players are involved, but to a different extent.

Hovik (00:09:08):

Can I also just add something?

Hovik (00:09:11):

Isn't it curious that when

Hovik (00:09:14):

J.D. Vance was in Armenia explicitly endorsing Pashinyan,

Hovik (00:09:19):

no one said a peep,

Hovik (00:09:20):

but when he went to Hungary to endorse Orbán,

Hovik (00:09:23):

all of the EU establishment started crying about outside interference,

Hovik (00:09:27):

even though they are the number one outside interference guys or experts in the

Hovik (00:09:32):

region.

Hovik (00:09:33):

Because actually they agree with what he did in Armenia,

Hrant (00:09:36):

but did not agree with what he did in Hungary.

Hrant (00:09:38):

So it's, you know, EU and US interests do not diverge to the extent some portray.

Hrant (00:09:46):

They still, during the Trump era, they still coincide in many cases.

Hrant (00:09:53):

So what we are observing here is that...

Hrant (00:09:57):

one foreign interference, one over another foreign interference.

Hrant (00:10:01):

So unfortunately for countries like Hungary and especially Armenia,

Hrant (00:10:05):

which is even smaller,

Hrant (00:10:07):

three times smaller than Hungary,

Hrant (00:10:09):

for countries like ours,

Hrant (00:10:11):

it's very hard to

Hrant (00:10:13):

to be sovereign and you are affected either by one or another great power and

Hrant (00:10:19):

especially during this interconnected era of information,

Hrant (00:10:26):

economy and politics,

Hrant (00:10:27):

which is completely interconnected throughout the world.

Hrant (00:10:31):

So what do we get from here?

Hrant (00:10:34):

I mean, we as Armenia.

Hrant (00:10:37):

One, I think that Orbán,

Hrant (00:10:39):

which started from some moment playing on Erdogan's side,

Hrant (00:10:44):

which will be much more...

Hrant (00:10:47):

Well,

Hrant (00:10:48):

Hungary will be much more,

Hrant (00:10:51):

let's say,

Hrant (00:10:52):

in line with Brussels foreign policies.

Hrant (00:10:55):

EU has already presented a 27-point plan,

Hrant (00:10:59):

which Hungary must one-sided accept to get its frozen assets.

Hrant (00:11:06):

or at least the assets that EU has promised,

Hrant (00:11:09):

it's 35 billion,

Hrant (00:11:11):

which is significant amount for Hungary.

Hrant (00:11:14):

But at the same time,

Hrant (00:11:16):

27 point plan,

Hrant (00:11:17):

which includes lots of stuff,

Hrant (00:11:20):

giving up all foreign policy,

Hrant (00:11:23):

ensuring gay rights,

Hrant (00:11:24):

ensuring migrant influx and so on and so forth,

Hrant (00:11:27):

will be very hard to swallow for new Hungarian leader,

Hrant (00:11:32):

although he was also

Hrant (00:11:35):

at some point conservative and sided with Orbán.

Hrant (00:11:38):

But I think now he will try to be in line with Brussels foreign policy.

Hrant (00:11:44):

So I think he will try to negotiate to decrease,

Hrant (00:11:46):

let's say,

Hrant (00:11:47):

number of these points at least twice.

Hrant (00:11:51):

At least migrants issue will be very hard to negotiate and will be very important for Hungary.

Hrant (00:11:59):

And I think it will be a possible place of concession for

Hrant (00:12:04):

But many other points he will have to accept, especially what is regarding Ukraine.

Hrant (00:12:10):

But at the same time,

Hrant (00:12:12):

I think that Erdogan will lose his influence,

Hrant (00:12:16):

which he had through Hungary in Europe.

Hrant (00:12:21):

And I think for Armenia, it is a good sign.

Asbed (00:12:25):

Hrant, one of the things that we notice is how the opposition coalesce around one

Asbed (00:12:31):

candidate to defeat Orbán.

Asbed (00:12:34):

Is there some kind of a lesson here for the Armenian opposition in the upcoming

Asbed (00:12:38):

elections in June?

Hrant (00:12:41):

Frankly speaking, it is not.

Hrant (00:12:44):

And I'll try to explain why.

Hrant (00:12:47):

Because those opposition groups and opposition parties which supported Peter Magyar are

Hrant (00:12:55):

very different.

Hrant (00:12:57):

It's a very wide coalition,

Hrant (00:13:01):

which looks very similar to what there was in Israel several years ago,

Hrant (00:13:07):

like five years ago,

Hrant (00:13:08):

if I'm not mistaken.

Hrant (00:13:10):

So the issue is here that to unite such a different coalition,

Hrant (00:13:17):

and by the way,

Hrant (00:13:18):

Armenian opposition is not such diverse as Hungarian opposition,

Hrant (00:13:23):

but still to unite

Hrant (00:13:25):

such a big variety of groups you need an external force who will do this work and

Hrant (00:13:32):

there was such force in Israel it was a US Biden administration there was such

Hrant (00:13:40):

force in Hungary it was Brussels and there is no such force in Armenia so I think

Hrant (00:13:48):

this is the difference if we look at it objectively because again the

Hrant (00:13:53):

Foreign influence is there on both sides in Hungary,

Hrant (00:13:57):

but EU side played,

Hrant (00:14:00):

let's say, more technologically.

Hrant (00:14:03):

But at the same time,

Hrant (00:14:05):

as of now,

Hrant (00:14:06):

it's unclear how stable will be this new government,

Hrant (00:14:09):

because many say that the coalition is so wide that very,

Hrant (00:14:14):

very soon the new leader might face difficulties and his coalition might start

Hrant (00:14:21):

collapsing.

Hrant (00:14:22):

he gained constitutional majority.

Hrant (00:14:25):

Now, will he rewrite all the laws Orbán accepted?

Hrant (00:14:29):

Or his coalition will start collapsing and he will have to deal with new situation

Hrant (00:14:33):

and then they will have to have new elections,

Hrant (00:14:38):

basically like Israel has undergo this process.

Hrant (00:14:42):

So, we will see.

Hrant (00:14:44):

Now, in Armenia,

Hrant (00:14:45):

if there was one leader on the opposition side,

Hrant (00:14:48):

then I think we would have no question

Hrant (00:14:52):

it's Pashinyan or the opposition because the popular vote would be very much like

Hrant (00:14:58):

what we had in Hungary so it would be like 55 to 35 or 55 to 38 maybe for

Hrant (00:15:05):

opposition because if we combine all the opposition votes those exceed

Hrant (00:15:13):

pro-government votes by significant amount but since many parties might not pass

Hrant (00:15:19):

the threshold

Hrant (00:15:20):

The government has, the Pashinyan party, ruling party, has good chances to win.

Hrant (00:15:25):

Let's say,

Hrant (00:15:26):

we will discuss it later,

Hrant (00:15:28):

but I think since there is no external force which unites the opposition and which

Hrant (00:15:34):

forces opposition to concede their interests,

Hrant (00:15:37):

and, you know,

Hrant (00:15:38):

Armenian political parties,

Hrant (00:15:39):

although they might not diverge very much in ideology,

Hrant (00:15:44):

not to say they have lots of it,

Hrant (00:15:47):

but they diverge in their financial interests.

Hrant (00:15:50):

That's what the difference is here.

Asbed (00:15:53):

We can definitely talk about that,

Asbed (00:15:54):

but I want to note that even in your description,

Asbed (00:15:58):

there is great diversity in the Armenian opposition,

Asbed (00:16:02):

even though it's not the same,

Asbed (00:16:03):

maybe it's not ideological,

Asbed (00:16:05):

but we have everything from pro-Pashinyan,

Asbed (00:16:08):

so-called pro-Pashinyan opposition to anti-Pashinyan opposition.

Asbed (00:16:12):

So we can talk about those things in a moment in the context of our discussion on the MPG poll.

Hovik (00:16:18):

Before we go to the polls,

Hovik (00:16:19):

though, I want to quickly gauge,

Hovik (00:16:22):

Hrant,

Hovik (00:16:23):

your thoughts on Hungary's future within the Organization of Turkic States.

Hovik (00:16:29):

Because, I mean, honestly, besides the Hungarian language,

Hovik (00:16:32):

being Uralic I don't think there is any common history, common culture, or

Hovik (00:16:41):

common even genetics between Turks and Hungarians so do you think that the

Hovik (00:16:48):

new government will continue this line of kowtowing to Erdogan?

Hovik (00:16:57):

Do you have any sense of that aspect?

Hrant (00:17:03):

Well,

Hrant (00:17:04):

first of all,

Hrant (00:17:05):

Uralic is,

Hrant (00:17:06):

you know,

Hrant (00:17:07):

the Hungarian language is much closer to Finnish or Karelian or Mordvin language,

Hrant (00:17:13):

but not to Turkish or Kazakh or Uzbek language.

Hrant (00:17:18):

So, I mean, it's...

Hrant (00:17:22):

Maybe very deeply in history,

Hrant (00:17:24):

maybe 10,000 years ago,

Hrant (00:17:26):

it was the same language,

Hrant (00:17:27):

maybe,

Hrant (00:17:28):

but not 2,000 or 3,000 years ago.

Hrant (00:17:31):

So I think Orbán's play on Turkish ground was a kind of exploration game,

Hrant (00:17:40):

which he was trying to find some new resources.

Hrant (00:17:43):

But frankly speaking, I don't see what he had to gain through that experience.

Hrant (00:17:50):

Maybe it was just a move to counter EU.

Hrant (00:17:53):

Because on one hand, he had a relation with Russia.

Hrant (00:17:58):

But since any kind of relation with Russia is very toxic in the West right now,

Hrant (00:18:03):

the scope of that relation was very limited.

Hrant (00:18:06):

So he chose another partner to mock the Brussels, which was Erdogan.

Hrant (00:18:11):

And not only him, of course.

Hrant (00:18:13):

But I think Erdogan was kind of a tool for him.

Hrant (00:18:17):

and since the new government will not have this need to counter Brussels,

Hrant (00:18:23):

I hope they will limit the scope of participation in the Turkish state's

Hrant (00:18:29):

organization and you know of course there is a religious and any other kind of

Hrant (00:18:37):

difference but you know they don't even share any

Hrant (00:18:42):

any joint interests as well.

Hrant (00:18:44):

So I don't see any realistic scope of cooperation,

Hrant (00:18:48):

maybe economic, but economic Turkey can have with Albania as well,

Hrant (00:18:53):

or maybe with Italy or whoever.

Hrant (00:18:56):

I don't see any specific interests Hungary can have with Erdogan.

Hrant (00:19:03):

Okay.

Asbed (00:19:03):

One final question.

Asbed (00:19:05):

Does this loss by Orbán polarize the EU's position towards Russia even more than it

Asbed (00:19:11):

is at present?

Hrant (00:19:13):

You know, that's a very interesting question and I think the future will show.

Hrant (00:19:18):

But what I can speculate right now is that the EU was playing a game that,

Hrant (00:19:27):

look at me,

Hrant (00:19:28):

I'm crazy,

Hrant (00:19:29):

you cannot stop me and so on and so forth.

Hrant (00:19:32):

And since there was a disruptor who happened to be urban,

Hrant (00:19:40):

EU could portray itself as much more anti-Russian and pro-Ukrainian than it really is.

Hrant (00:19:47):

And now, since there is no Orbán,

Hrant (00:19:50):

either EU will have to pursue its policy,

Hrant (00:19:53):

what is declared,

Hrant (00:19:54):

and will find the consequences very soon,

Hrant (00:19:57):

or it will have to back down rhetorically as well.

Hrant (00:20:00):

Because what they are declaring is basically,

Hrant (00:20:03):

if you translate it to the political world,

Hrant (00:20:06):

it's a total war against Russia.

Hrant (00:20:08):

And since there is no one who is stopping them, they need to have some steps.

Hrant (00:20:13):

And I don't see which kind of steps they should do.

Hrant (00:20:16):

Okay,

Hrant (00:20:17):

they can give 90 billions to Ukraine,

Hrant (00:20:19):

which I frankly speaking don't believe that they will give.

Hrant (00:20:23):

And so I think it might be even beneficial if you will...

Hrant (00:20:30):

have to do whatever they declare and not having Orbán to blame for failures in

Hrant (00:20:37):

anti-Russian policy.

Hovik (00:20:39):

All right, folks,

Hovik (00:20:40):

now let's move to politics and the election politics,

Hovik (00:20:44):

especially of Armenia,

Hovik (00:20:46):

as viewed through the prism of a poll that was recently published.

Hovik (00:20:50):

And the poll that we're talking about is MPG,

Hovik (00:20:55):

also known as Gallup International Association Armenia.

Hovik (00:21:00):

The results of which were published last week,

Hovik (00:21:03):

but the polling was done between April 1st and April 3rd.

Hovik (00:21:09):

So pretty tight window there.

Hovik (00:21:12):

Now,

Hovik (00:21:13):

if you're following us on video platforms,

Hovik (00:21:16):

then we will show the slides from the poll on your screen.

Hovik (00:21:21):

Those include not just YouTube, but we're also on Substack.

Hovik (00:21:25):

and also Rumble and even Spotify we have a video version we'll have a video version

Hovik (00:21:30):

of this podcast there so uh feel free to follow along on video if you'd like for

Hovik (00:21:36):

this one because there is a lot of information to communicate all right now uh let

Hovik (00:21:42):

me just jump to slide number three in the poll which said in your opinion what are

Hovik (00:21:46):

the most important issues facing our country

Hovik (00:21:50):

And it has some pretty interesting results, in my opinion.

Hovik (00:21:53):

So let's start with the first one,

Hovik (00:21:55):

which was the question that was asked,

Hovik (00:21:57):

in your opinion,

Hovik (00:21:58):

what are the most important issues facing our country?

Hovik (00:22:02):

Now, if you remember the IRI poll,

Hovik (00:22:04):

I think a month back,

Hovik (00:22:06):

the IRI poll still found that most people said security was pretty important,

Hovik (00:22:12):

but it had actually decreased in importance over time.

Hovik (00:22:17):

But this poll clearly suggests that security issues are...

Hovik (00:22:23):

are on the top of mind of the respondents at least.

Hovik (00:22:28):

So number one answer was security issues, 45.8%.

Hovik (00:22:31):

Number two was unemployment with 14.9%.

Hovik (00:22:33):

Economic situation, 13.5%.

Hovik (00:22:34):

Low pension and salaries, 10.7%.

Hovik (00:22:45):

And then actually border demarcation, which is listed separately as 9.8%.

Hovik (00:22:50):

So if you actually add border demarcation and security issues together,

Hovik (00:22:54):

you get almost 60% security concerns.

Hovik (00:23:00):

So how do you interpret these results?

Hovik (00:23:03):

And is this good or bad for the opposition?

Hovik (00:23:07):

And our opposition party is able to come up with their unique offering

Hovik (00:23:13):

to voters that will make a difference on this issue?

Hovik (00:23:17):

Because we see that the security space is dominated by Pashinyan,

Hovik (00:23:21):

who keeps saying that,

Hovik (00:23:22):

you know, we have peace,

Hovik (00:23:23):

peace, peace,

Hovik (00:23:24):

and so forth.

Hovik (00:23:26):

And, you know, the trip and everything is, you know, all these agendas are set by Pashinyan.

Hovik (00:23:31):

So how can the opposition differentiate?

Hrant (00:23:34):

Okay, so first of all, if we look at all replies, we will see that both

Hrant (00:23:41):

security and economics,

Hrant (00:23:44):

the whole spectrum combined,

Hrant (00:23:46):

is about 60% of mentions,

Hrant (00:23:49):

because any person could name more than one issue.

Hrant (00:23:53):

Basically, security and economics are equal right now.

Hrant (00:23:58):

And a month ago, or even two months ago, according to the IRI poll, economics was ahead.

Hrant (00:24:07):

And I don't see any contradiction here.

Hrant (00:24:10):

Because in between, the Iran war occurred.

Hrant (00:24:14):

So what is important here is that the peace narrative of Pashinyan started collapsing.

Hrant (00:24:22):

Because what he was promising was that the peace epoch is starting and you can do

Hrant (00:24:28):

nothing about it,

Hrant (00:24:30):

either adapt or die,

Hrant (00:24:32):

let's say.

Hrant (00:24:34):

They were talking to people like peace is a threat.

Hrant (00:24:38):

to Armenia.

Hrant (00:24:39):

And in reality, this kind of peace is.

Hrant (00:24:42):

But, you know, if you analyze the semantics and the way they spoke,

Hrant (00:24:46):

it was a threatening discussion.

Hrant (00:24:50):

Now,

Hrant (00:24:51):

even this kind of discussion is collapsing because it's obvious there will be no

Hrant (00:24:56):

peace and it's obvious for everyone.

Hrant (00:24:58):

So, first of all, security is increasing its importance here.

Hrant (00:25:04):

Another thing which is important is that

Hrant (00:25:07):

Iran's support is very strong.

Hrant (00:25:10):

So, according to this poll, 58% support Iran, and just 3.3% support US and Israel.

Hrant (00:25:22):

Yeah, we'll cover actually the Iran question separately, but yeah.

Hrant (00:25:25):

Okay, but what is important here is that since US, since Trump was broker of that peace, or

Hrant (00:25:35):

fake peace process,

Hrant (00:25:36):

to be honest,

Hrant (00:25:37):

because nothing about trip and the so-called peace process which Pashinyan was

Hrant (00:25:43):

undertaking,

Hrant (00:25:44):

nothing was about lasting realistic and favoring Armenian peace.

Hrant (00:25:50):

So it was just a time losing manure to win elections and to create a fake picture

Hrant (00:25:59):

of peace for a couple of years before

Hrant (00:26:03):

and to give more and more concessions before the new war erupts.

Hrant (00:26:08):

And now what is different is that opposition during the pre-election campaign

Hrant (00:26:13):

started speaking out.

Hrant (00:26:16):

And as of now, they have alternative suggestion.

Hrant (00:26:20):

They say they need to renegotiate the peace.

Hrant (00:26:23):

They say that these conditions are unacceptable.

Hrant (00:26:26):

This has been said.

Hrant (00:26:28):

And they say that they need to renegotiate it with different partners

Hrant (00:26:33):

while Pashinyan was negotiating it only with one partner,

Hrant (00:26:37):

basically the United States and Trump.

Hrant (00:26:39):

So this is a different agenda.

Hrant (00:26:44):

Now, how it will be perceived among the population?

Hrant (00:26:46):

I think the population after this war will be more susceptible to such approach,

Hrant (00:26:51):

but to which extent we will see.

Hrant (00:26:54):

And I think that Pashinyan, who tried to use TRIPP as an election leverage, is failing here.

Hrant (00:27:02):

also because Iranians will not welcome trip in and under any conditions obviously

Hrant (00:27:07):

they do not want to drag Armenia into this war as well so they have you know mixed

Hrant (00:27:13):

approach here they obviously do not want to have TRIPP here but at the same time

Hrant (00:27:17):

they do not want to start a new front here but uh but in any case if Iran is

Hrant (00:27:24):

capable they will try to stop this project and moreover moreover um

Hrant (00:27:31):

we are observing another reality.

Hrant (00:27:34):

Iran has finished construction of their own corridor.

Hrant (00:27:38):

Well, basically, it's not corridor.

Hrant (00:27:40):

That is the difference with Strip.

Hrant (00:27:42):

So they are providing Azerbaijan with a land connection with bridge through their own territory.

Hrant (00:27:49):

They say,

Hrant (00:27:50):

if whatever you want is a land connection between Nakhijevan and Baku,

Hrant (00:27:55):

we will give it to you.

Hrant (00:27:57):

So you will have it.

Hrant (00:27:59):

Now, if you want an uninterrupted

Hrant (00:28:02):

connection,

Hrant (00:28:03):

if you want a connection which is a corridor which no one checks and so on,

Hrant (00:28:08):

that's another story and you need to say that clearly.

Hrant (00:28:12):

So Iran is putting Azerbaijan on the crossroads.

Hrant (00:28:16):

Either it should state its aggressive approach,

Hrant (00:28:21):

which is never hesitating to do,

Hrant (00:28:22):

but anyway,

Hrant (00:28:24):

or it should accept Iranian proposal.

Hrant (00:28:26):

That is another difference.

Hrant (00:28:29):

And then there is a third layer, which is

Hrant (00:28:32):

you know, in reality, majority do not support TRIPP in Armenia, despite all propaganda.

Hrant (00:28:37):

So according to various polls,

Hrant (00:28:40):

the opinions about TRIPP is split,

Hrant (00:28:42):

but with slight majority against.

Asbed (00:28:45):

It's interesting to note that over a year ago,

Asbed (00:28:48):

when Pashinyan was saying that he can offer the same terms as Iran was offering for

Asbed (00:28:54):

transit through Armenia,

Asbed (00:28:55):

and both Turkey and Azerbaijan completely rejected it,

Asbed (00:28:58):

it showed

Asbed (00:28:59):

that the trip is actually not about transit,

Asbed (00:29:01):

it's actually about undermining the sovereignty of Armenia rather than anything

Asbed (00:29:05):

else.

Asbed (00:29:06):

When it comes to the issues of security and economy,

Asbed (00:29:11):

Robert Kocharian has made the reopening of the Abkhaz Railway a major campaign

Asbed (00:29:15):

issue,

Asbed (00:29:16):

and this issue actually straddles both of those topics.

Asbed (00:29:19):

He argues that it would give Armenia a faster,

Asbed (00:29:22):

cheaper route to Russia and reduce dependence on Azerbaijan,

Asbed (00:29:25):

unlike Pashinyan's so-called peace route through Azerbaijani territory.

Asbed (00:29:30):

The obstacle, of course,

Asbed (00:29:31):

is that Georgia and Abkhazia have a very tendentious relationship for the last 25,

Asbed (00:29:37):

30 years with each other.

Asbed (00:29:39):

And there's a lot of difficulty getting them to agree on anything.

Asbed (00:29:43):

Still, Russia has been pushing the idea publicly,

Asbed (00:29:46):

and the Abkhaz side has shown some interest to come to an agreement.

Asbed (00:29:51):

And in the past,

Asbed (00:29:53):

Russia and Georgia talks,

Asbed (00:29:55):

for example, in 2018,

Asbed (00:29:56):

reported some advancements in this area,

Asbed (00:29:59):

but then the Abkhaz,

Asbed (00:30:00):

of course, stopped it.

Asbed (00:30:02):

So do you think that times have changed here?

Asbed (00:30:05):

Is Russia...

Asbed (00:30:06):

able to put the kind of pressure on Abkhazia and Georgia to come to some kind of a

Asbed (00:30:12):

win-win agreement?

Asbed (00:30:14):

Could Armenia also pitch into this to make it a win-win agreement and open this railway?

Hrant (00:30:20):

Okay,

Hrant (00:30:21):

so I think this is a very hard issue because let's say there are two and a half

Hrant (00:30:27):

sides which are for this railway and two and a half sides which are against this

Hrant (00:30:34):

way. So it's a kind of a deadlock.

Hrant (00:30:37):

Let me start from the sites which are four.

Hrant (00:30:40):

The first is Armenia and Armenia has been desperately asking for reopening this way

Hrant (00:30:46):

since 1992 when it was exploded by the Abkhazians because Georgians were trying to

Hrant (00:30:53):

bring their military through this railway.

Hrant (00:30:56):

Abkhazians have blown the bridge there and since then the road is not working.

Hrant (00:31:03):

Now Armenia wanted to reopen this road

Hrant (00:31:07):

like any time.

Hrant (00:31:09):

Second side is obviously Russia,

Hrant (00:31:11):

because Russia has lost adequate connection to the South Caucasus.

Hrant (00:31:18):

due to bad relations with Georgia on one hand, especially before 2010.

Hrant (00:31:25):

There were four years when there was completely no connection between Russia and

Hrant (00:31:29):

Georgia, I mean land connection.

Hrant (00:31:31):

So Russia wanted to restore connection to the South Caucasus and the Abkhazian

Hrant (00:31:35):

Railway is a very important direction for that.

Hrant (00:31:39):

That's second.

Hrant (00:31:41):

And two and a half, the half would be Iran because Iran wants to get a

Hrant (00:31:48):

way towards north and northwest.

Hrant (00:31:52):

And why half? Because Iran is not very deeply involved there.

Hrant (00:31:55):

But still it is there.

Hrant (00:31:57):

And Iran will be supportive of this transport route.

Hrant (00:32:04):

And if Iran is sustaining its position in the region after this war,

Hrant (00:32:12):

they will have an important word to say.

Hrant (00:32:15):

So it is dependent also on U.S.-Iran war outcomes.

Hrant (00:32:19):

That's first.

Hrant (00:32:21):

Now, who is against?

Hrant (00:32:23):

Well, again, two and a half players.

Hrant (00:32:26):

First player is Azerbaijan, not Georgia, not Abkhazia.

Hrant (00:32:30):

Why Azerbaijan?

Hrant (00:32:31):

Because Azerbaijan is struggling to blockade anything connected to Armenia wherever possible.

Hrant (00:32:38):

And Azerbaijan did not change its approach.

Hrant (00:32:40):

They are creating, you know,

Hrant (00:32:42):

fake events, opening borders and transferring some goods to armenia through Georgia.

Hrant (00:32:47):

But in reality the only case where border was really open between armenia and

Hrant (00:32:52):

Azerbaijan is you know this one week ago several um u.s funded NGO representatives

Hrant (00:33:01):

who traveled from Armenia to Azerbaijan via a temporary

Hrant (00:33:05):

working you know so-called civil society open society so-called civil society

Asbed (00:33:05):

So-called civil society, open society.

Hrant (00:33:05):

Yea, so-called civil society.

Hrant (00:33:11):

That's the only case in 30 years and that is why i think we cannot call it an open

Hrant (00:33:19):

border or or even any direction towards opening the border because whatever is

Hrant (00:33:24):

discussed about that

Hrant (00:33:26):

that those are just episodes.

Hrant (00:33:27):

Azerbaijan is not opening the border not easing the blockade and whatever it is

Hrant (00:33:33):

doing it's trying to do to remove the section 907 for the freedom act of us which

Hrant (00:33:38):

is blockading us from from the military aid to Azerbaijan.

Hrant (00:33:44):

So that is what they are trying to do and they are using Israeli lobby in the US congress.

Hrant (00:33:51):

There is a bill to remove this section

Hrant (00:33:54):

but yet they did not succeed.

Hrant (00:33:56):

So that's on one hand.

Hrant (00:33:59):

And Azerbaijan uses its influence on Georgia to block reopening this road.

Hrant (00:34:06):

So the same way Armenia wants to open it, Azerbaijan does not want it to be reopened.

Hrant (00:34:11):

That's first.

Hrant (00:34:12):

Second, obviously Georgia and Abkhazians themselves.

Hrant (00:34:16):

Why Abkhazia is half?

Hrant (00:34:17):

Because it's not recognized state and it's not a fully

Hrant (00:34:24):

because it depends on Russia completely, at least economically.

Hrant (00:34:32):

It has connection to Turkey,

Hrant (00:34:34):

and Turkey even tried to use its influence in the last elections and to disrupt the

Hrant (00:34:40):

political process there.

Hrant (00:34:42):

They supported an extremist candidate who has started an anti-Armenian campaign, which...

Hrant (00:34:50):

failed due to Russian heavy involvement there.

Hrant (00:34:53):

So they supported a mainstream candidate, funded his campaign and so on.

Hrant (00:34:58):

But it was still a hard victory.

Hrant (00:35:00):

So that is interesting.

Hrant (00:35:01):

But on the ground, Turkey has very limited presence.

Hovik (00:35:05):

But wouldn't they be able to affect the Georgian government's position?

Hovik (00:35:10):

Because both Azerbaijan and Turkey have strong influence,

Hovik (00:35:13):

at least that's my understanding,

Hovik (00:35:15):

that they have strong influence over Georgian foreign policy.

Hrant (00:35:19):

Well, in reality,

Hrant (00:35:20):

I think that if Georgia strictly decides to reopen,

Hrant (00:35:23):

they will not be able to block it.

Hrant (00:35:26):

But if Georgia is, you know, swinging and undecided, then they are able to block it.

Hrant (00:35:32):

So that is how it works.

Hrant (00:35:34):

But obviously,

Hrant (00:35:36):

Abkhazians do not want it because they don't want to have increased Georgian

Hrant (00:35:41):

influence there.

Hrant (00:35:43):

And obviously it will happen, even if on the first stage,

Hrant (00:35:48):

Georgians will not be led to pass this way, the same way as through Russian-Georgian border.

Hrant (00:35:56):

The first period only Armenians were crossing that border and Azerbaijanis.

Hrant (00:36:01):

But then Georgians started crossing this border and then Russian-Georgian trade

Hrant (00:36:05):

started increasing very significantly through Upper Lars or Kazbegi checkpoint.

Hrant (00:36:13):

Now the same will happen there.

Hrant (00:36:15):

even if on the first stage Georgians will not be allowed to pass.

Hrant (00:36:20):

On the second stage,

Hrant (00:36:21):

they will obviously pass and they will start,

Hrant (00:36:23):

you know,

Hrant (00:36:24):

somehow recreate connections and recreate influence and so on.

Hrant (00:36:29):

And given that they are still 20-25% of Georgian population in Abkhazia,

Hrant (00:36:36):

they will have a ground to play.

Hrant (00:36:38):

So Abkhazian leadership, which is...

Hrant (00:36:41):

nationalistic,

Hrant (00:36:42):

of course,

Hrant (00:36:43):

they are reluctant to reopen this road,

Hrant (00:36:46):

although I think that if Russia decides it strictly,

Hrant (00:36:51):

I think they will be able to push Abkhazians to reopen the road.

Hrant (00:36:55):

Now Georgians, there is an interesting divide.

Hrant (00:36:59):

On one hand,

Hrant (00:37:01):

among the population,

Hrant (00:37:02):

there have been only two opinion polls which I have ever heard of.

Hrant (00:37:08):

One was held in

Hrant (00:37:10):

2003, and another in 2012 or 2013.

Hrant (00:37:16):

In both cases, majority of population supported reopening the road.

Hrant (00:37:22):

65% were for, and some 30% were against, with 5% undecided.

Hrant (00:37:29):

So that is the opinion of Georgian people,

Hrant (00:37:31):

despite the governmental change from Shevardnadze to Saakashvili and to

Hrant (00:37:37):

Ivanishvili.

Hrant (00:37:39):

Now, Ivanishvili really once,

Hrant (00:37:40):

only once,

Hrant (00:37:41):

he has stated that he wants to reopen this road,

Hrant (00:37:44):

but then he faced a very strong opposition in both Georgian opposition,

Hrant (00:37:53):

which was pro-Western,

Hrant (00:37:54):

and the West itself.

Hrant (00:37:56):

Because, you know,

Hrant (00:37:57):

West wants to cut all ties between Russia and Georgia,

Hrant (00:38:01):

and they see that if this road is opened,

Hrant (00:38:04):

the ties between Russia and Georgia and between Russia and the whole South Caucasus

Hrant (00:38:08):

region,

Hrant (00:38:09):

including Armenia,

Hrant (00:38:10):

will start recreating.

Hrant (00:38:13):

And that is why they don't want this road to be opened.

Hrant (00:38:16):

So they use their resources also to block it in Georgia using the opposition.

Hrant (00:38:21):

And we have seen how EU and US are able to gather dozens of thousands of people in

Hrant (00:38:28):

the streets in Tbilisi.

Hrant (00:38:29):

So it is important tool.

Hrant (00:38:34):

There they have the toolkit.

Hrant (00:38:37):

And I think Georgian government will have hard times if it wants to reopen it.

Hrant (00:38:43):

But there is one thing.

Hrant (00:38:45):

It's very heavily dependent on how geopolitically will end all this conflict

Hrant (00:38:51):

situation in the post-Soviet space,

Hrant (00:38:54):

especially the Ukrainian war and the Iranian war.

Hrant (00:38:58):

Because Georgia wants to recreate diplomatic ties with Russia,

Hrant (00:39:01):

which the Saakashvili government has cut off.

Hrant (00:39:04):

more than 15 years ago.

Hrant (00:39:07):

And they are reluctant to do that because they are waiting what will happen in Ukraine.

Hrant (00:39:12):

They want this war to be over so that they are reopening diplomatic ties with,

Hrant (00:39:18):

you know, more peaceful Russia,

Hrant (00:39:19):

let's say.

Hrant (00:39:20):

So it is important that Russia, you know, ends this war on one hand.

Hrant (00:39:24):

And on another hand,

Hrant (00:39:25):

the conditions under which the war is ending are not very one-sided,

Hrant (00:39:31):

especially for Ukraine.

Hrant (00:39:33):

So in this case, there is a window of opportunity for reopening this railroad.

Asbed (00:39:39):

Hrant, the Abkhaz railway, therefore, is kind of a North-South connectivity.

Asbed (00:39:43):

The trip is an East-West connectivity.

Asbed (00:39:46):

Does it divide Armenian politics along the opposition versus the ruling party lines?

Hrant (00:39:54):

Obviously, because Pashinyan was, you know, basically he was brought to power to

Hrant (00:40:01):

to push Armenia into the east-west agenda and to disrupt the north-south agenda,

Hrant (00:40:07):

which was pushed by the previous government.

Hrant (00:40:09):

And now we have the same division.

Hrant (00:40:12):

And east-west for Armenia, it's Turkey-Azerbaijan, and that's what Pashinyan is obviously doing.

Hrant (00:40:17):

And he declares that it's crossroads of peace,

Hrant (00:40:20):

but what we are seeing is only east-west,

Hrant (00:40:23):

not north-south.

Hovik (00:40:26):

Okay,

Hovik (00:40:27):

let's move on to the next set of questions,

Hovik (00:40:30):

which gauge the public opinion on the Iran war.

Hovik (00:40:33):

So slides number four, five, and six, if you're following along on the screen.

Hovik (00:40:39):

So slide No. 4 asked,

Hovik (00:40:40):

who do you support between this Iran-Israel war,

Hovik (00:40:44):

Iran-U.S.-Israel war?

Hovik (00:40:46):

And a resounding 57.9%.

Hovik (00:40:49):

said that they support Iran, while only 3.3% said that they support Israel and the US.

Hovik (00:40:56):

I mean about 36% said that they support neither.

Hovik (00:41:00):

On slide number five,

Hovik (00:41:01):

however,

Hovik (00:41:02):

they asked who is most responsible for this war and 73.9% said the US,

Hovik (00:41:07):

Israel or both the US and Israel together.

Hovik (00:41:14):

And only 3.2% again said that Iran was responsible for this war.

Hovik (00:41:20):

However, slide number six is a little more interesting.

Hovik (00:41:25):

When voters were asked whether they were satisfied with Armenia's policy in

Hovik (00:41:30):

response to this war,

Hovik (00:41:31):

27.2% said they were satisfied.

Hovik (00:41:33):

Meanwhile, about 23.3% said that they were dissatisfied.

Hovik (00:41:42):

I mean reading the amount of support honestly between you know as a lay person

Hovik (00:41:46):

if I you know saw this amount of support for Iran it's interesting that at least

Hovik (00:41:53):

in terms of the Armenian foreign policy most people are equivocal I mean

Hovik (00:41:59):

essentially in terms of whether they support or don't support Armenian

Hovik (00:42:04):

foreign policy regard you know regarding Iran so what can you ascertain from

Hovik (00:42:09):

these results

Hrant (00:42:10):

well in reality this heavily depends on the sources of information from which

Hrant (00:42:18):

people are gathering the you know news about the foreign policy and in Armenian

Hrant (00:42:24):

case the very important source of information is the first public tv channel which

Hrant (00:42:31):

always have been propaganda tv but

Hrant (00:42:35):

during pashinyan's time the amount and extent of propaganda has exceeded everything

Hovik (00:42:41):

you could imagine of but I mean that's a known that's a known issue right I mean

Hovik (00:42:45):

with every election we've said that the armenian government has a monopoly on

Hovik (00:42:49):

propaganda but does this mean that the opposition is not doing a good enough job

Hovik (00:42:54):

and trying to present what armenia is trying to do here with Iran and what it's

Hrant (00:43:00):

not doing obviously there is another poll by

Hrant (00:43:05):

by the ARAR Foundation,

Hrant (00:43:07):

which shows that level of satisfaction of domestic politics is significantly lower

Hrant (00:43:14):

than that of foreign politics.

Hrant (00:43:17):

So people are presented with a fake picture of success in foreign policy.

Hrant (00:43:22):

And since people do not interact with the results of foreign policy on a daily

Hrant (00:43:28):

basis,

Hrant (00:43:29):

and they do not know what's happening in reality,

Hrant (00:43:34):

They consider it to be more successful than domestic policy.

Hrant (00:43:39):

And I would say it is in reality the opposite.

Hrant (00:43:42):

Whatever they think of domestic politics, foreign policy is much worse, much, much worse.

Hrant (00:43:48):

And regarding Iran issue as well.

Hrant (00:43:50):

But obviously, most people do not know how the foreign policy is being conducted.

Hrant (00:43:57):

Whatever they understand here is that,

Hrant (00:43:59):

oh, we still retained good relations with Iran and we are out of this conflict.

Hrant (00:44:05):

So that is good.

Hrant (00:44:06):

And I'm sure that propaganda has displayed that the only country which was not

Hrant (00:44:12):

affected in this region by this conflict was Armenia and so on and so forth.

Hrant (00:44:16):

So they would present it as a result of the government's policies.

Hrant (00:44:20):

So, yeah, opposition in many cases failed to present the real picture here because

Hrant (00:44:27):

you know, it is hard to compete with government resources in information field.

Hrant (00:44:34):

And of course,

Hrant (00:44:35):

also,

Hrant (00:44:36):

it's not only about resources,

Hrant (00:44:38):

but this is also about,

Hrant (00:44:39):

you know,

Hrant (00:44:40):

modern way of information warfare,

Hrant (00:44:42):

which this government,

Hrant (00:44:43):

which Pashinyan,

Hrant (00:44:45):

who is himself former propaganda journalist,

Hrant (00:44:48):

he is very capable of.

Hrant (00:44:49):

So it's not only about resources,

Hrant (00:44:51):

but also about,

Hrant (00:44:52):

you know,

Hrant (00:44:53):

the direction of media narratives and so on.

Hovik (00:44:57):

So Hrant,

Hovik (00:44:58):

if this Iran war is still raging in June,

Hovik (00:45:02):

when the elections happen,

Hovik (00:45:04):

how do you think it will swing the voting,

Hovik (00:45:09):

if at all?

Hrant (00:45:10):

Well,

Hrant (00:45:11):

the fact itself of this war,

Hrant (00:45:15):

especially engaging so many states,

Hrant (00:45:18):

I think it disrupts Pashinyan's agenda,

Hrant (00:45:21):

both peace agenda and trip agenda.

Hrant (00:45:25):

So Pashinyan started to speak

Hrant (00:45:26):

speak much less about peace and trip and he switched towards you know domestic

Hrant (00:45:32):

political agenda which for him is much harder to to do that's first so I think he

Hrant (00:45:39):

is already weakened one and second if Iran wins that's another hard hit for him I

Hrant (00:45:46):

mean obviously Iran cannot win and put a flag in Washington that's not gonna happen

Hrant (00:45:52):

but but even if everything remains like this

Hrant (00:45:57):

Iran will obviously declare the victory and U.S.

Hrant (00:46:00):

Democrats and many other sides in the world will support this view.

Hrant (00:46:04):

So Iran will be considered as a victor.

Hrant (00:46:08):

So if Iran is considered as a victor,

Hrant (00:46:10):

then any Trump negotiated plan is failing and Trump negotiated policies are

Hrant (00:46:16):

failing. And Pashinyan's agenda of,

Hrant (00:46:18):

you know,

Hrant (00:46:19):

one sided direction towards the West,

Hrant (00:46:22):

at least declared because in reality is not going towards the West,

Hrant (00:46:25):

is going towards Turkey.

Hrant (00:46:26):

which is also, in a way, the West, but just geographically.

Hrant (00:46:30):

So Pashinyan's policy will fail as well.

Hrant (00:46:33):

So I think it's highly dependent.

Hrant (00:46:39):

This war will affect the results of elections,

Hrant (00:46:41):

but maybe 5% of voters will swing as a result of this war in this order direction.

Asbed (00:46:49):

This is a very large poll,

Asbed (00:46:51):

so I'm just going to skip a few slides and talk about slide 14,

Asbed (00:46:56):

where the question is,

Asbed (00:46:58):

are you going to participate in the 2026 parliamentary elections?

Asbed (00:47:03):

And the poll respondents basically said, yes, 60.5% said they are going to participate.

Asbed (00:47:09):

This is a very uncharacteristically large response that's positive.

Asbed (00:47:13):

What do you make of this?

Hrant (00:47:15):

I would not say it is very high in reality,

Hrant (00:47:18):

because usually people overstate their level of participation in whatever you might

Hrant (00:47:23):

imagine, in voluntary activities,

Hrant (00:47:25):

in church services,

Hrant (00:47:27):

in elections,

Hrant (00:47:28):

and so on.

Hrant (00:47:29):

So usually in Armenia,

Hrant (00:47:31):

in the polls,

Hrant (00:47:32):

you get some 80% of people saying they are going to participate in elections.

Hrant (00:47:37):

Now, 60% is rather low, given that...

Hrant (00:47:42):

that we might have 60% participation rate as well.

Hrant (00:47:47):

But if 60% say they will participate,

Hrant (00:47:51):

this means that in reality,

Hrant (00:47:54):

the lower number will participate because,

Hrant (00:47:56):

okay, 60% have intention to participate,

Hrant (00:47:58):

but maybe some will be away,

Hrant (00:48:02):

some will have another things to do and so on.

Hrant (00:48:05):

And so I think as of now, this number is very low.

Hrant (00:48:09):

But at the same time,

Hrant (00:48:10):

Only 15% said that they are not going to participate and 25% are undecided.

Hrant (00:48:16):

And let's see where those people will go.

Hrant (00:48:19):

And hopefully they will also participate.

Hrant (00:48:22):

So we will have more diverse landscape.

Hrant (00:48:24):

But anyway,

Hrant (00:48:25):

this is nature of the field,

Hrant (00:48:28):

of sociological field,

Hrant (00:48:29):

rather than the real intention to vote.

Asbed (00:48:33):

Because of the mood of the population,

Asbed (00:48:36):

Hrant, we have assumed that the higher participation actually favors the opposition and

Asbed (00:48:42):

the lower participation favors the government.

Asbed (00:48:44):

Do you see this issue the same way?

Hrant (00:48:47):

Yeah, obviously we can check it in Hungary.

Hrant (00:48:50):

And yes, if Hungarian election is a good lesson for Armenia, it's primarily this issue.

Hrant (00:48:58):

And because we have seen how big participation rate was in Hungary,

Hrant (00:49:02):

if I'm not mistaken,

Hrant (00:49:03):

it was 78% of people who participated in elections.

Hrant (00:49:07):

And in Armenia, it was last elections.

Hrant (00:49:09):

It was, if I'm not mistaken, 48%.

Hrant (00:49:12):

And even if we exclude all the voters,

Hrant (00:49:15):

which are not present in the country,

Hrant (00:49:16):

because the voter lists are inflated,

Hrant (00:49:19):

even in this case,

Hrant (00:49:20):

the participation rate would be lower than 60%.

Hrant (00:49:23):

And, uh,

Hrant (00:49:26):

We have seen another case in Gyumri,

Hrant (00:49:29):

Gyumri local elections,

Hrant (00:49:30):

which took place a year ago,

Hrant (00:49:35):

where opposition has won and also because of increased participation rate,

Hrant (00:49:42):

significantly increased over previous elections.

Hrant (00:49:44):

So yes, if people are active, then opposition has more chances to win.

Hrant (00:49:51):

And if people are passive, the government has more chances to win because

Hrant (00:49:56):

The government controlled electorate, which is, let's say, 25 percent of people, is stable.

Hrant (00:50:03):

So if 25 percent of people participate in voting, the ruling party will have 100 percent.

Hrant (00:50:10):

And if 75 percent will participate in elections, they will have one third of votes.

Hrant (00:50:16):

So I'm bringing it to the extremes, but I think you are getting where I'm heading.

Hrant (00:50:21):

So I think as of now,

Hrant (00:50:24):

the opposition electorate and opposition votes are in the play,

Hrant (00:50:28):

while government votes are very stable.

Hrant (00:50:30):

And by the way, one more thing.

Hrant (00:50:33):

Usually in Armenia,

Hrant (00:50:34):

before the elections,

Hrant (00:50:35):

especially three or four months and so on,

Hrant (00:50:38):

before the elections,

Hrant (00:50:39):

the votes for government,

Hrant (00:50:41):

for ruling party are very stable.

Hrant (00:50:43):

while votes for opposition are increasing towards elections because opposition is

Hrant (00:50:49):

starting to,

Hrant (00:50:50):

you know, wake up before the elections and activating and so on.

Hrant (00:50:54):

And always they are late to come up with programs and so on, but still they gather some support.

Hrant (00:51:00):

So I think in this case,

Hrant (00:51:02):

we're also observing this picture because in the earlier polls,

Hrant (00:51:06):

we would see the lower rate of support for opposition.

Hrant (00:51:09):

And in, um,

Hrant (00:51:11):

Newer polls, the rate of support for opposition is increasing.

Hovik (00:51:16):

Let's go to the main course of this poll,

Hovik (00:51:21):

which is slide number 15,

Hovik (00:51:24):

which asks if parliamentary elections were held next Sunday,

Hovik (00:51:28):

which party would you vote for?

Hovik (00:51:30):

A civil contract, based on these numbers, has 24.3% support.

Hovik (00:51:38):

Number two on this list is Strong Armenia, which is 13.4%.

Hovik (00:51:43):

And number three is Prosperous Armenia, 7.9%.

Hovik (00:51:46):

Armenia Alliance is at 5.5%,

Hovik (00:51:52):

which would mean that with these numbers,

Hovik (00:51:55):

they wouldn't clear the threshold.

Hovik (00:51:57):

And then Wings of Unity is at 1.5%.

Hovik (00:52:01):

Now,

Hovik (00:52:02):

according to MPG,

Hovik (00:52:04):

this DOG party from Vartan Ghukasyan has 3.1%,

Hovik (00:52:09):

but I haven't heard any announcements from them,

Hovik (00:52:11):

whether they're running,

Hovik (00:52:14):

but they're obviously 1% away from the threshold,

Hovik (00:52:17):

so it's very interesting.

Hovik (00:52:19):

What are your thoughts about these results,

Hovik (00:52:21):

and how would they translate to mandates if this dynamic stayed the same?

Hrant (00:52:30):

I tried to cross-check these results through other pollsters' assessments.

Hrant (00:52:38):

And what I can say is that these results are most likely representing the reality on the ground.

Hrant (00:52:49):

It seems that the Tsarukyan's block support rate is a bit inflated here.

Hrant (00:52:56):

but for the rest, it is more or less adequate numbers here.

Hrant (00:53:01):

Now,

Hrant (00:53:02):

regarding Pashinyan's party,

Hrant (00:53:04):

which has 24% here,

Hrant (00:53:06):

by the way,

Hrant (00:53:07):

the same number he had in IRI poll.

Hrant (00:53:11):

The opposition votes were lower there due to some reasons,

Hrant (00:53:15):

maybe the selections bias or something else,

Hrant (00:53:20):

or maybe just due to timing,

Hrant (00:53:23):

because it was a period of

Hrant (00:53:25):

J.D. Vance's

Hrant (00:53:27):

visit to Armenia,

Hrant (00:53:28):

and obviously the whole informational space was covered by that,

Hrant (00:53:35):

and especially Pashinyan was trying to use it in his favor.

Hrant (00:53:38):

But at the same time,

Hrant (00:53:39):

a couple of days after,

Hrant (00:53:42):

there was a presentation of the strong Armenian party led by Samvel Karapetyan,

Hrant (00:53:46):

and we are observing that Samvel Karapetyan has gathered some more support in this

Hrant (00:53:51):

period.

Hrant (00:53:52):

So that's on one hand.

Hrant (00:53:53):

Also, we have seen that Samvel Karapetyan's party had a

Hrant (00:53:57):

rather impressive rally several days ago.

Hovik (00:54:00):

Yeah, on Saturday.

Hrant (00:54:02):

Yeah, and not only his supporters were impressed, but also the government.

Hrant (00:54:08):

Because today,

Hrant (00:54:10):

on Tuesday, they have captured several representatives of the party and took them to,

Hrant (00:54:17):

you know,

Hrant (00:54:18):

detain them,

Hrant (00:54:20):

including Gohar Ghumashyan,

Hrant (00:54:22):

who is mother of a newborn.

Hrant (00:54:25):

So they declared that they are

Hrant (00:54:26):

you know, engaged in, you know, corruption or something, you know.

Hrant (00:54:31):

So I think that as of now, it's becoming more and more tense.

Hrant (00:54:39):

And there are very big threats that there might be some disruption of election due

Hrant (00:54:45):

to the, you know,

Hrant (00:54:46):

state of emergency or something else.

Hrant (00:54:48):

There are discussions.

Hrant (00:54:49):

I don't know to which extent this might be true.

Hrant (00:54:52):

But anyway,

Hrant (00:54:53):

I think that the situation is problematic,

Hrant (00:54:55):

both for government and opposition,

Hrant (00:54:56):

by the way.

Hrant (00:54:57):

And I'll try to explain why.

Hrant (00:54:59):

On one hand, as you said, the ruling party is in the first place.

Hrant (00:55:04):

On another hand, if we combine all the opposition votes, they are ahead.

Hrant (00:55:09):

Now, many opposition parties might not pass the threshold,

Hrant (00:55:17):

which is a very interesting thing here.

Hrant (00:55:19):

For example,

Hrant (00:55:20):

if we take 5.5%,

Hrant (00:55:22):

which Kocherian's bloc Armenia has,

Hrant (00:55:26):

if we exclude all the people who have not decided their vote,

Hrant (00:55:31):

this will transfer towards 8.7%.

Hrant (00:55:34):

So it's enough.

Hrant (00:55:37):

The threshold for them is 8%.

Hrant (00:55:39):

Now, isn't it actually 10%?

Hrant (00:55:41):

No, it is 8.7%.

Hrant (00:55:43):

Oh, so 10% for strong grammar, yeah.

Hrant (00:55:46):

it would be 10 if there would be four parties there, or three or four parties.

Hrant (00:55:51):

But since there are two parties, it's 8%.

Hrant (00:55:56):

Now,

Hrant (00:55:57):

despite which figures we trust,

Hrant (00:56:00):

we can say that,

Hrant (00:56:01):

we can easily say that Kocharyan might pass or might not pass.

Hrant (00:56:05):

And this might become a deciding factor for the elections.

Hrant (00:56:10):

And frankly speaking, some Armenian politicians, which are not participating

Hrant (00:56:15):

themselves in the elections,

Hrant (00:56:17):

but they represent another political group,

Hrant (00:56:20):

let me not say which specifically.

Hrant (00:56:23):

They started targeting Kocharyan,

Hrant (00:56:25):

and I don't understand why they started doing it before the elections,

Hrant (00:56:28):

and maybe,

Hrant (00:56:29):

and some people think that it's connected,

Hrant (00:56:31):

you know,

Hrant (00:56:32):

they are indirectly supporting Pashinyan,

Hrant (00:56:34):

because, you know,

Hrant (00:56:35):

in reality,

Hrant (00:56:36):

if Kocharyan will not pass,

Hrant (00:56:38):

Pashinyan has very good chances to win,

Hrant (00:56:41):

because opposition can win with a coalition.

Hrant (00:56:44):

There is no single opposition party which will win.

Hrant (00:56:47):

Obviously,

Hrant (00:56:48):

the strong Armenian party by Samvel Karapetyan has the highest share among all

Hrant (00:56:57):

opposition parties,

Hrant (00:56:58):

but it's not going to surpass the ruling party.

Hrant (00:57:02):

At least as of now, we don't see these signs.

Hrant (00:57:06):

They have lower support, especially given that they do not have all this...

Hrant (00:57:14):

all these tools in their toolkit, you know, all the state apparatus and so on.

Hrant (00:57:20):

So anyway,

Hrant (00:57:22):

the problem is that it will depend who will pass through the threshold and who will

Hrant (00:57:28):

not.

Hrant (00:57:29):

And obviously the international events, which we have discussed as well.

Hrant (00:57:33):

Another important international event will take place in three weeks when the EU

Hrant (00:57:39):

representatives and the European political community will gather in Yerevan.

Hrant (00:57:45):

one month before the elections.

Hrant (00:57:47):

And obviously it will be a big support for Pashinyan and it might give him another

Hrant (00:57:51):

two or three percent,

Hrant (00:57:53):

which might be even enough for him to win.

Hrant (00:57:55):

So as of now, it's a very unclear situation.

Hrant (00:57:59):

I would say 50-50 for government and opposition.

Hrant (00:58:02):

And even if opposition wins, it will be a very hard coalition.

Hrant (00:58:07):

There will be three or maybe even four parties in that coalition.

Hrant (00:58:11):

And it depends which parties will overpass the threshold.

Hrant (00:58:16):

And also regarding the DOG party or Vartan Ghukasyan,

Hrant (00:58:21):

it's very unclear because on one hand,

Hrant (00:58:23):

they are having discussions and they are saying this or that.

Hrant (00:58:27):

On another hand, their leader is in jail in the U.S. and Pashinyan is pushing him as well.

Hrant (00:58:34):

So it's a very unclear situation.

Hrant (00:58:37):

So I would say that...

Hrant (00:58:40):

that we need to track these elections very carefully.

Hovik (00:58:43):

And another problem is that there is a lot of... Is Vartan Ghukasyan still in jail in the US?

Hovik (00:58:50):

I thought he was released and he's somewhere in the world.

Hovik (00:58:54):

But I don't know.

Hovik (00:58:56):

I guess the day the last day on April 13 was the first day that parties would

Hovik (00:59:03):

submit their nominations or essentially they would register as candidates in the

Hovik (00:59:09):

elections.

Hovik (00:59:10):

What is the last day to do that?

Hovik (00:59:12):

And is it possible that sometime between now and the last day,

Hovik (00:59:15):

there will be major changes in terms of who is,

Hovik (00:59:20):

you know, registering and including this dog party?

Hrant (00:59:25):

Yeah, it will be somewhere around April 25, if I'm not mistaken.

Hrant (00:59:30):

I don't remember the exact date, so there will be some 10 days, I think.

Hrant (00:59:35):

So that's one thing.

Hrant (00:59:36):

Regarding the dog party,

Hrant (00:59:38):

yeah, frankly speaking,

Hrant (00:59:39):

I don't know exactly if he was released,

Hrant (00:59:42):

but I'm not sure that he still has full control of his party because Pashinyan

Hrant (00:59:48):

captured or bought some of his party members and they have

Hrant (00:59:53):

had several internal conflicts.

Hrant (00:59:54):

So it's very unclear situation there.

Hrant (00:59:57):

And as of now, I cannot say anything decisive.

Hrant (01:00:01):

And if he is not participating, then there is another question.

Hrant (01:00:05):

Whom will his electorate support?

Hrant (01:00:08):

Another question is the Republican Party of Armenia,

Hrant (01:00:12):

which has declared that it's not going to participate in the elections.

Hrant (01:00:16):

And it's understandable, according to MPG poll, they would get some, well,

Hrant (01:00:22):

It's 2% here,

Hrant (01:00:24):

but if we exclude those who are undecided,

Hrant (01:00:27):

then it would rise to 3%,

Hrant (01:00:29):

but it's still lower than the threshold.

Hrant (01:00:31):

But 3% could make a difference for opposition parties.

Hrant (01:00:36):

And then there is a question where those 3% will go.

Hrant (01:00:40):

Another question is,

Hrant (01:00:43):

what will Arman Tatoyan's,

Hrant (01:00:46):

the Miasnutyan Dever,

Hrant (01:00:47):

or the Wings of Unity party will do?

Hovik (01:00:50):

Because Hayakve, just for our listeners, Hayakve decided to leave this alliance.

Hovik (01:00:56):

So we don't know what Hayakve will do and we don't know what Wings of Unity will do.

Hrant (01:01:01):

Well,

Hrant (01:01:02):

first of all, I can tell you that,

Hrant (01:01:04):

unfortunately,

Hrant (01:01:05):

Armand Tatoyan was not a very good partner for them because he tried to,

Hrant (01:01:13):

you know,

Hrant (01:01:15):

not share any meaningful positions with his partners.

Hrant (01:01:21):

And he failed negotiations with some other parties.

Hrant (01:01:24):

They had a hope to create a wide minoritarians block,

Hrant (01:01:29):

which would be a very interesting initiative,

Hrant (01:01:32):

but it failed.

Hrant (01:01:33):

And unfortunately, it failed due to

Hrant (01:01:36):

you know, political immaturity of Arman Tatoyan, let me say.

Hrant (01:01:40):

Now, on another hand,

Hrant (01:01:42):

it's unclear whether Arman Tatoyan will participate himself as well,

Hrant (01:01:45):

because due to many polls,

Hrant (01:01:48):

he is around the threshold and he might as well go down,

Hrant (01:01:54):

especially if tensions rise.

Hrant (01:01:56):

If tensions rise,

Hrant (01:01:57):

we might have a situation similar to,

Hrant (01:02:00):

for example,

Hrant (01:02:01):

2008,

Hrant (01:02:02):

when all the minoritarian parties have lost their support and

Hrant (01:02:07):

All support was dragging towards main candidates.

Hrant (01:02:12):

So, I mean, the presidential elections, heated elections of 2008.

Hrant (01:02:18):

So in this case,

Hrant (01:02:19):

both support of the ruling party and of main opposition party Strong Armenia will

Hrant (01:02:24):

increase at the expense of minoritarian political groups.

Hrant (01:02:30):

But we will see that.

Hrant (01:02:31):

We will see that.

Hrant (01:02:33):

As of now,

Hrant (01:02:34):

it's very,

Hrant (01:02:35):

very questionable where will the electorate of minoritarian groups go and how big

Hrant (01:02:42):

number of parties will be left outside of the threshold.

Hrant (01:02:46):

But if we combine all the opposition parties,

Hrant (01:02:49):

again, the opposition parties,

Hrant (01:02:50):

I'm not even saying about,

Hrant (01:02:51):

you know,

Hrant (01:02:52):

non-Pashinyan,

Hrant (01:02:53):

pro-Pashinyan parties,

Hrant (01:02:55):

but the opposition parties themselves combined,

Hrant (01:02:58):

they have significantly higher support rate than Pashinyan.

Hrant (01:03:02):

So,

Hrant (01:03:03):

If they would be able to form an effective coalition, they would win.

Hrant (01:03:07):

More or less the same percentage as Hungary.

Hovik (01:03:11):

interesting um so a day before these MPG polls were released another poll result

Hovik (01:03:17):

was released and we think it's only fair that we cover it, we're talking about

Hovik (01:03:23):

the EVN report Armenian election study ArmES team, and the two pollsters part of

Hovik (01:03:32):

a part of that team are nurses Kopalyan and Rafael Oganesyan both from

Hovik (01:03:37):

UNLV, University of Las Vegas, or University of Nevada in Las Vegas.

Hovik (01:03:43):

And this poll was conducted towards the late part of February and March, I believe.

Hovik (01:03:52):

Now, the ARMES poll presents a starkly different view of the Armenian political

Hovik (01:03:57):

landscape as of early 2026.

Hovik (01:04:02):

Let me talk about, first of all, the government, the Civil Contract numbers.

Hovik (01:04:07):

The MPG poll, as we said, shows that a civil contract has 24.3%.

Hovik (01:04:14):

In contrast, EVN report places them at 33.6%.

Hovik (01:04:19):

Now, when you talk about the opposition,

Hovik (01:04:21):

the MPG poll shows Strong Armenia with 13.4,

Hovik (01:04:25):

Prosperous Armenia 7.9,

Hovik (01:04:28):

and Armenia Alliance 5.5.

Hovik (01:04:30):

Meanwhile, the ArmES poll has Strong Armenia at 11.4,

Hovik (01:04:34):

Armenia Alliance only 4.2,

Hovik (01:04:35):

and Prosperous Armenia 3.3.

Hovik (01:04:44):

To what do you attribute this huge divergence in numbers?

Hrant (01:04:52):

OK, if we look at previous poll by EVN Report,

Hrant (01:04:57):

we will see that this poll corresponds to all other opinion polls which have taken

Hrant (01:05:03):

in Armenia in the end of 2025.

Hrant (01:05:07):

So all other questions,

Hrant (01:05:10):

you know, for example,

Hrant (01:05:12):

the level of satisfaction with the direction of country,

Hrant (01:05:17):

the other issues,

Hrant (01:05:19):

or all of them were more or less in line with the sociological field we have right

Hrant (01:05:25):

now.

Hrant (01:05:26):

This one diverges significantly.

Hrant (01:05:29):

And this is interesting.

Hrant (01:05:31):

Not only in case of a vote intention, but also with other questions.

Hrant (01:05:38):

And if we look at...

Hrant (01:05:39):

Yeah,

Hovik (01:05:40):

in fact, if I can just say,

Hovik (01:05:42):

according to this in poll,

Hrant (01:05:44):

89% said that they're going to go and vote.

Hrant (01:05:47):

So... Yeah, for example, that is very significant difference...

Hrant (01:05:54):

compared to the mpg results and frankly speaking 89% does not seem trustworthy

Hrant (01:06:00):

right now not only that the direction of country which is which has swing towards

Hrant (01:06:06):

positive very hard to believe no good change no good changes happened in the last

Hrant (01:06:13):

three or four months to believe that the direction is you know swing towards

Hrant (01:06:18):

positive the same regarding the trip because

Hrant (01:06:23):

trip was considered not beneficial, now it's considered beneficial, and so on.

Hrant (01:06:28):

So we see a 10% shift in all of the questions in favor of government.

Hrant (01:06:36):

Frankly speaking, I don't know exactly how it happened,

Hrant (01:06:38):

but there is no methodological section here,

Hrant (01:06:42):

and many questions are politically charged here,

Hrant (01:06:47):

which shows at least the intention of the pollsters

Hrant (01:06:51):

to show some political narrative.

Hrant (01:06:54):

And I think this is problematic.

Hrant (01:06:56):

So I don't believe these results.

Hrant (01:07:00):

And it's not that I think that any EVN report poll is incorrect.

Hrant (01:07:08):

But unfortunately, this one is incorrect.

Hrant (01:07:11):

And moreover, unfortunately, in Armenia, we have a track record of

Hrant (01:07:16):

any pollsters,

Hrant (01:07:17):

you know,

Hrant (01:07:18):

at some point,

Hrant (01:07:19):

especially those pollsters who have published freely the results,

Hrant (01:07:25):

have track record of,

Hrant (01:07:26):

you know,

Hrant (01:07:28):

publishing incorrect results.

Hovik (01:07:30):

It's interesting, yeah, because I was going to say that there was going to be,

Hovik (01:07:32):

there are many other pollsters who regularly do polling,

Hovik (01:07:37):

but they don't,

Hovik (01:07:38):

they keep the results very close to their vest for whatever reason.

Hrant (01:07:42):

Yeah, there are many of them and

Hrant (01:07:45):

At least,

Hrant (01:07:46):

at least if the poll is closed and the results are not published,

Hrant (01:07:49):

they don't have this public motivation to show something,

Hrant (01:07:53):

you know, to prove something or to have some propaganda campaign and so on.

Hrant (01:07:57):

So in this case,

Hrant (01:07:58):

we have this motivation because in reality,

Hrant (01:08:02):

if the public opinion poll can somehow affect the expectations of people and if

Hrant (01:08:10):

people believe that this or that will win,

Hrant (01:08:13):

then

Hrant (01:08:14):

the shift in published results can make sense. So with this I want to say that those

Hrant (01:08:23):

results which are published online really those might be distorted by this the

Hrant (01:08:29):

function itself now regarding IRI poll or MPG poll or year one report poll we have

Hrant (01:08:37):

seen in past how all of them have to some extent manipulated the results

Hrant (01:08:44):

Unfortunately, all of them have done so.

Hrant (01:08:48):

And not all of the polls have been manipulated.

Hrant (01:08:51):

I would say even more.

Hrant (01:08:53):

Majority of the survey results were not manipulated, but some of them were.

Hrant (01:08:58):

And we can define it by the unexpected and unexplained shifts in the results.

Hrant (01:09:06):

That's what I can say.

Hovik (01:09:07):

Hrant,

Hovik (01:09:09):

those following Armenian news know that at least one of these posters from EVN

Hovik (01:09:14):

Report has a very big reputation for supporting the current regime in Armenia.

Hovik (01:09:19):

He's essentially Pashinyan's poster boy in various circles.

Hovik (01:09:25):

And I'm talking about, of course, Nerses Kopalyan.

Hovik (01:09:29):

Now, you or I or Asbed can have our own political opinions and can comment on them freely.

Hovik (01:09:36):

But in this case, we're talking about the lead researcher or the lead analyst on a poll having some

Hovik (01:09:43):

strong opinions.

Hovik (01:09:44):

about the current regime and just to go into a little bit more detail he calls the

Hovik (01:09:48):

Armenian opposition as "Russian proxies and reasons that the

Hovik (01:09:54):

opposition is not performing well because well Russia's hybrid operations aren't

Hovik (01:09:58):

working" another point

Hovik (01:10:04):

He repeatedly refers to forces aligned with former presidents Robert Kocharyan and

Hovik (01:10:10):

Serge Sarkisyan as illiberal opposition.

Hovik (01:10:13):

Now,

Hovik (01:10:14):

the definition of illiberal means opposed to political liberalism,

Hovik (01:10:18):

especially restricting individual rights and freedoms.

Hovik (01:10:22):

Who has attacked the church and religious rights of Armenians?

Hovik (01:10:27):

not the opposition,

Hovik (01:10:28):

who has jailed journalists and as a result made Armenia number three in the whole

Hovik (01:10:33):

Council of Europe,

Hovik (01:10:34):

right after Turkey and Azerbaijan,

Hovik (01:10:38):

in terms of the people,

Hovik (01:10:39):

you know, number of journalists imprisoned.

Hovik (01:10:41):

Not the opposition.

Hovik (01:10:42):

Pashinyan has done that.

Hovik (01:10:44):

He calls Pashinyan a pro-democracy incumbent.

Hovik (01:10:47):

And this is all in the published poll or the interview that they made about the poll.

Hovik (01:10:53):

It's not like he was talking about this elsewhere.

Hovik (01:10:55):

Right during the deep dive into their polling results, he keeps nailing these points.

Hovik (01:11:02):

On what planet do you have to live to believe that Pashinyan is pro-democracy?

Hovik (01:11:08):

Talk about narrative shaping, which he's accusing Russia of doing.

Hovik (01:11:11):

So lastly,

Hovik (01:11:12):

Kopalyan basically says that Armenian voters are more intelligent,

Hovik (01:11:15):

he uses that word intelligent,

Hovik (01:11:18):

and politically mature,

Hovik (01:11:20):

because they support Pashinyan.

Hovik (01:11:22):

Basically saying that anyone who's immature and unintelligent would support the opposition.

Hovik (01:11:27):

So,

Hovik (01:11:29):

given the track record of this analyst,

Hovik (01:11:32):

which honestly,

Hovik (01:11:33):

you know, we can say a lot about different posters,

Hovik (01:11:36):

but this is the most obviously slanted analyst,

Hovik (01:11:41):

and he's basically leading the charge on this poll.

Hovik (01:11:44):

Given all of this, to what extent does the subjectivity of the analyst

Hovik (01:11:49):

undermine the perceived neutrality of the poll's predictive modeling and its

Hovik (01:11:54):

overall credibility?

Hrant (01:11:58):

Well, theoretically, that's a good theoretical question.

Hrant (01:12:01):

Theoretically, even subjectivity of the researcher should not affect the results.

Hrant (01:12:07):

But in this case, it's not only subjectivity, but it's his participation in reality.

Hrant (01:12:15):

So if this poll is not a scientific result,

Hrant (01:12:18):

But it is a political result, if it is.

Hrant (01:12:22):

And it is also because what you have mentioned.

Hrant (01:12:26):

And also, if we look at wordings of the questions, we can see the questions which he puts.

Hrant (01:12:34):

Those are very charged questions, which is, let's say, a forbidden tool in sociology.

Hrant (01:12:41):

So he uses that.

Hrant (01:12:42):

And this affects how people response.

Hrant (01:12:48):

It's not only about how he registers the responses but

Hrant (01:12:54):

also how people respond so people may respond you know the way you know people

Hrant (01:13:01):

might be afraid to say their opinion especially given that their opinion polls

Hrant (01:13:08):

lately are phone based and the government has you know put in jail many people for

Hrant (01:13:15):

not supporting or for criticizing and so on and maybe

Hrant (01:13:18):

All of them know that.

Hrant (01:13:19):

So people might try to reject to participate in such poll or maybe not try to answer.

Hrant (01:13:25):

But apart from that,

Hrant (01:13:28):

given what he has said,

Hrant (01:13:30):

I can assume that all data is distorted,

Hrant (01:13:33):

not only pre-factum,

Hrant (01:13:34):

but also post-factum.

Hrant (01:13:37):

So I think the data is just distorted.

Hrant (01:13:40):

And unfortunately, I cannot believe these results.

Hrant (01:13:42):

So I think the problem is, you know, when he says mature and so on.

Hrant (01:13:47):

OK, people who watch the public television are mature.

Hrant (01:13:52):

And when we see this aggregation of voters by other pollsters,

Hrant (01:13:56):

we see that people with higher education tend to not support this government.

Hrant (01:14:02):

Younger people not support this government.

Hrant (01:14:05):

You know, whatever, those who are employed do not support this government and so on.

Hrant (01:14:09):

So, I mean, how does he gather this impression?

Hrant (01:14:13):

You know,

Hrant (01:14:15):

if this is a statement which can be checked,

Hrant (01:14:17):

we can check it and we can see that this is not corresponding to the reality.

Hrant (01:14:22):

It's a basic, you know, it's just an insult.

Hrant (01:14:25):

Just as Trump said lately that, you know, Tucker Carlson has low IQ.

Hrant (01:14:30):

or previously Hillary Clinton said that Trump supporters are "basket of deplorables".

Hrant (01:14:36):

And we can remember such things which have been said by many unsuccessful

Hrant (01:14:43):

politicians who have labeled their counterparts as stupid people.

Hrant (01:14:53):

This is the same tool and I think

Hrant (01:14:56):

It's better not to believe these results,

Hrant (01:14:58):

although it's unfortunate that we have,

Hrant (01:15:01):

you know,

Hrant (01:15:02):

publication of these kind of distorted results.

Hovik (01:15:05):

Yeah, the best we can do is at least, you know, we should talk about them.

Hovik (01:15:08):

But yes,

Hovik (01:15:09):

I mean, to me,

Hovik (01:15:10):

it puts the entire reputation of this poll in question,

Hovik (01:15:16):

given the obvious,

Hovik (01:15:18):

you know,

Hovik (01:15:19):

bias of the pollster.

Asbed (01:15:22):

All right.

Asbed (01:15:23):

This is a good place to stop.

Asbed (01:15:25):

And I think we will have another chance before the elections to talk with Hrant.

Asbed (01:15:29):

Thank you for joining us today, Hrant.

Asbed (01:15:31):

It's always great to talk with you.

Hrant (01:15:33):

Thank you, guys.

Hrant (01:15:36):

Thank you, Hrant.

Asbed (01:15:38):

That was our show recorded on April 14, 2026.

Asbed (01:15:42):

We've been talking with Hrant Mikaelian,

Asbed (01:15:44):

a political scientist and multidisciplinary researcher in social sciences in

Asbed (01:15:49):

Yerevan.

Asbed (01:15:50):

For more information, go to our website, podcasts.Groong.org/episode-number.

Asbed (01:15:56):

Check us out.

Hovik (01:15:58):

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Asbed (01:16:08):

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I'm Asbed Bedrossian.

Hovik (01:16:11):

And I'm Hovik Manucharyan.

Hovik (01:16:13):

Talk to you soon.

Hovik (01:16:14):

Until next time.

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Asbed Bedrossian

Co-host
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Hovik Manucharyan

Co-host
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Hrant Mikaelian

Guest

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