Armenia’s ruling party leads polls, 30% of voters undecided
By Alexander Pracht
Civilnet
Armenia’s ruling Civil Contract party leads voter preferences three months before parliamentary elections, while 30% of respondents say they remain undecided, according to a new poll conducted last month by the International Republican Institute among resident citizens of Armenia and forcibly displaced former residents of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Data was collected through phone interviews with a sample of 1,506 respondents nationwide. Residents who have lived in Armenia for fewer than six months were excluded from the sample.
Asked which political party or alliance they would vote for if national elections were held next Sunday, 24% of respondents said they would support the Civil Contract party led by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. The second most popular force was the Strong Armenia party led by Russian-Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan, with 9% of support.
Several other parties received smaller shares. The Armenia Alliance, which includes the Armenian Revolutionary Federation and is led by former president Robert Kocharyan, received about 3% support. Another 3% said they would vote for the Prosperous Armenia party led by billionaire Gagik Tsarukyan.
However, a large portion of respondents, 30%, remain undecided. Another 8% said they would definitely not vote, while 5% said they plan to deliberately spoil their ballot so that their vote is counted but does not go to any party.
When the results are filtered to include only respondents who said they are very likely to vote, support for Civil Contract rises to 29%, while Strong Armenia receives 11%. The survey also found that 69% of respondents said they are certain of their choice and do not expect to change their mind before election day.
Civil Contract’s support appears weaker in Yerevan, where only 15% of respondents said they would vote for the ruling party. Support rises to 25% in other urban areas and reaches 31% in rural communities. Armenia’s population is roughly evenly distributed between these three categories.
Support for the Strong Armenia party led by Samvel Karapetyan appears to be evenly distributed geographically, with roughly 9–10% support among respondents in Yerevan, other urban areas and rural communities. The Armenia Alliance of Kocharyan shows a different geographic pattern, receiving 5% support in Yerevan but only about 2% in rural areas.
The poll also indicates generational differences in voter preferences. Civil Contract performs strongest among older voters, with 34% support among those aged 56 and older. Among younger voters aged 18 to 35, only 12% said they would vote for the ruling party, slightly more than the 10% support recorded for Karapetyan’s Strong Armenia among the same age group.
Political disillusionment also appears highest among young respondents. Fourteen percent of voters aged 18 to 35 said they do not plan to vote at all, while 34% said they remain undecided, reflecting a broader pattern of political apathy noted in previous surveys.
Among respondents who said they would not vote, the most frequently cited reasons were a lack of trust in any party or political leader (20%), the belief that their vote would not matter (13%), and distrust in the electoral process (12%).
Armenia’s parliamentary elections are scheduled for June 7. As in previous elections, Armenian citizens will only be able to vote inside the country and not at embassies abroad.
