“Hraparak” daily falsifies results of IRI poll

On July 4, “Hraparak” Daily wrote about the results of a sociological survey on the approval rating of political parties and political figures conducted by the International Republican Institute (IRI) However, the figures introduced by the newspaper do not correspond to the official figures published by IRI.

According to Hraparak Daily, as a result of the survey, Nikol Pashinyan’s approval rating is 56%, and that of President Armen Sarkissian is 61%. As for the political forces, according to the newspaper, the approval rating of “My Step” Alliance is 52%, PAP – 12%, Bright Armenia – 5.8%, RPA – 5.1%, ARF – 3.5%.

 

The article was republished by a number of media outlets: tert.am, kentron.am, mamul.am, panorama.am, news.am, 1in.am, armeniasputnik.am.

According to the survey results published on July 8, Prime Minister Pashinyan’s approval rating is 72%, and that of President Armen Sarkissian is 81%. As for the political forces, the approval rating of “My Step” Alliance is 59%, PAP – 12%, RPA – 5%, Bright Armenia – 4%, ARF – 4%, “Sasna Tsrer” – 1%.

The comparison between the data published by Hraparak Daily and the real figures from the IRI survey is given below.

	“Hraparak”	IRI	Difference
Nikol Pashinyan	56%	72%	-16%
Armen Sarkissian	61%	81%	-20%
“My Step”	52%	59%	-7%
PAP	12%	12%	–
BAP	5.80%	4%	1.8%
RPA	5.10%	5%	0.1%
ARF	3.50%	4%	-0.5%

 

As we can see, the figures published by Hraparak Daily and attributed to IRI are largely inconsistent with official data. The largest inconsistency is in the data referring to Armen Sarkissian, Nikol Pashinyan and “My Step” Alliance.

It is noteworthy that according to the daily, IRI survey results were finalized just a week ago, and “have recently been provided to a number of state agencies which haven’t published the results yet.” It is unclear why the state agencies should publish the data.

The survey of the International Republican Institute was conducted on May 6-31 this year. About 1200 RA citizens with the right of suffrage participated in the survey.

 

Hovhannes Nazaretyan