What might have caused Armenians to take action? Underlying currents from the Caucasus Barometer data
What might have caused Armenians to take action? Underlying currents from the Caucasus Barometer data
Date:
May 7, 2018
By Okan Doğan*
Hrant Dink Foundation Fellow at CRRC-Armenia
* Okan Dogan is doing his fellowship at CRRC-Armenia within the Turkey-Armenia Fellowship Scheme which in 2017-2019 is implemented by the Hrant Dink Foundation in partnership with Gyumri Youth Initiative Centre, with the support of the UK Government’s Conflict, Stability and Security Fund.
* Okan Dogan is doing his fellowship at CRRC-Armenia within the Turkey-Armenia Fellowship Scheme which in 2017-2019 is implemented by the Hrant Dink Foundation in partnership with Gyumri Youth Initiative Centre, with the support of the UK Government’s Conflict, Stability and Security Fund.
On April 23rd 2018, Armenia’s Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan resigned in response to the days-long protests against his continued rule of the country beyond his tenure as the country’s president (2008-2018). At the point of resignation, Sargsyan had very recently completed a seemingly smooth transformation in the country from semi-presidential system to parliamentary system of government (through a constitutional referendum in 2015), and had himself elected as prime minister in the parliament dominated by his Republican Party of Armenia (RPA). However, the protest movement against his rule led by a member of parliament from the opposition “Way Out” alliance, Nikol Pashinyan, effectively ousted him from power. After Sargsyan’s resignation, the opposition movement turned its attention to preventing the RPA from holding on to power and forming a new government, the program offered instead being the formation of an interim government (to be led by Pashinyan), reforming the electoral law, and calling early elections. The events of Armenia’s “Velvet Revolution” are still unfolding, and the conclusions are yet to be seen. In this blog post, I wish to take a step back, and through the data produced in Caucasus Barometer (CB) surveys, demonstrate the underlying trends of political opinion that might have contributed to the widespread support Pashinyan has been able to accumulate for his movement.
Firstly, the political life in Armenia takes place against the backdrop of a widespread distrust of the political elite, and a widespread perception of unfairness in government affairs. During recent years, those who expressed their trust in the core political institutions have consistently been very low: 16% or less for the parliament, 20% or less for the executive government, 17% or less for courts, and 13% or less for the political parties in all four rounds of the CB since 2012. By the same token, the share of the respondents who disagree with the statement “Under the present system of government in Armenia, […] people like yourself are treated fairly by the government” has never been lower than 75% in the six rounds of the survey conducted since 2010 [Figure 1][1].
However, the distrust towards the current political institutions is not accompanied by a more general apathy towards politics. According to the CB data, the percentage of the respondents who consider it important for a good citizen to vote in elections has turned out 80% or more until 2017, when it fell to 72%. Those who have reported to have actually voted in the most recent national elections also fluctuates around 80%. These scores are particularly remarkable given that the elections in Armenia have been reported to take place under systematic and widespread violations that have “an essential impact on the exercise and the protection of the right to free and fair elections”[2]. Other responses that could similarly be interpreted as markers of political engagement, such as the willingness to participate if national elections were to be held the following weekend, also point to a body politic that is politically active in principle, but very unhappy about or distrustful of the actually existing political institutions.
Coming against this backdrop, the ruling party’s 2015 constitutional referendum failed to create much support or enthusiasm. The 2015 CB included a question about respondents’ support for the 2015 constitutional referendum. Excluding those who refused to answer or said that they did not know, the total share of the respondents who reported their partial or full support for the reforms is 19%, only 7% in this sum being “full support”. It might also be interesting to see how the responses given to this question relate to the ones given to a few other questions that could be interpreted as markers of political attitude and behavior, namely the ones measuring the opinion about the direction in which the country’s politics is moving, and opinion about citizens’ right to protest.
The opinion about the direction of the country’s politics in 2015 CB tilted heavily towards the negative side. Excluding “Don’t know” and “Refuse to answer” responses, only 1% qualified the direction as definitely right and 7% as somehow right; as opposed to 34% for “definitely wrong” and 20% for “somehow wrong” (the most frequent response overall was “no change” in the direction of Armenian politics, given by 38% of the respondents). The supporters of the constitutional referendum in 2015 were largely among the very small minority (8%) which considered the country to be heading in the right direction: 50% of those who chose the response “Politics is going mainly in the right direction” and 55% of those who went for “Politics is definitely going in the right direction” [Figure 2][3]. What is specifically remarkable in the interaction of the two questions is that even of the mere 1% who indicated that Armenian politics is definitely heading in the right direction, about one third expressed their opposition to the constitutional reforms.
Figure 2
Figure 2
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A similar picture emerges from the question about participating in the protests against the government. In this question, the respondents are asked to choose between the following statements:
- People should participate in protest actions against the government, as this shows the government that the people are in charge.
- People should not participate in protest actions against the government, as it threatens stability in our country.
Over the years, the percentage of those supporting the second statement has recorded a steady decrease. Excluding “don’t know” and “refuse to answer” responses, the support for the second statement decreased from 37% in 2008 CB, to 19% in 2017 CB. The percentage of those supporting the first statement, on the other hand, has turned out greater than 65% in 6 of the 8 rounds of the CB, and 81% in the last two. When it comes to how the support for protests relate to the support for/opposition to the constitutional referendum, the picture that emerges from the 2015 CB is roughly as expected. Those supporting protest actions featured intensely among those opposing the constitutional referendum, and constituted a sizeable portion of those who expressed their partial or full support for the referendum: 35% of those who expressed their partial support (which constituted 12% of the CB population excluding “don’t know” and “refuse to answer” responses) and 44% of those who expressed their full support (which constituted 7% of the CB population excluding “don’t know” and “refuse to answer” responses) for the constitutional referendum expressed their support for protest actions.
Before the current “Velvet Revolution” the Armenians’ attitude towards protest actions was actually tested by another incident during recent years. In July 2016, a group of armed men calling themselves “The Daredevils of Sasoun” seized a police station in Yerevan and took nine people hostage, demanding the resignation of Sargsyan government and release of political prisoners. The action of the group lasted two weeks and ended with the death of three police officers. The hostage crisis was also accompanied and followed by demonstrations and protests in the capital city. The 2017 CB includes a question about the respondents’ opinion about this episode of radical armed action. The percentages of those who condemn and strongly condemn the actions of The Daredevils of Sasoun were 11% and 5% respectively; whereas those who support and fully support the group amount to 17% and 21% respectively. In this politically sensitive question, 47% of the survey population did not indicate any clear preference between condemning or supporting. This sum includes those who remained neutral (28%), who said they did not know (13%), who said they have not heard about the incident (5%), and who refused to answer (1%). If we look at how the responses to this question relate to the responses given to the question about the direction of the country’s politics, it is interesting to note that the support for The Daredevils of Sasoun featured in sizeable numbers even among those who see the country’s direction as mainly right, or definitely right (30% and 39% respectively) [Figure 3][4]. While there is no organic connection between the 2016 Hostage Crisis and the current “Velvet Revolution”, the CB data suggests that the support for radical political action is quite significant in the Armenian society, even when it turns into armed action against the government.
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| Note: The data excludes “Don’t know” and “Refuse to answer” responses. The cluster “Condemn” combines the responses “Strongly condemn” and “Rather condemn”, and the cluster “Support” combines the responses “Rather support” and “Fully support”. Some lines may not add up to 100% due to rounding. |
On 22 April 2018, a day before his resignation, Serzh Sargsyan met with Nikol Pashinyan in a hotel in order to discuss the ongoing political situation. The conversation, which was broadcasted live, lasted a few minutes until Sargsyan left. During their talk, Sargsyan accused Pashinyan of blackmailing the state and legitimate authorities, and tried to de-legitimize the opposition movement by referring to the percentage of votes received by Pashinyan’s party in 2017 elections, which was 7%[5]. However, the CB data presented above suggest that engaging in a discussion of legitimacy is not the wisest strategy for Sargsyan, since the Armenian people’s opinions of the actually existing political institutions, just like that of the fairness of government actions, is quite low. On top of this, the Armenian people are politically active, and it could be claimed that they deem protest actions against the government to be legitimate and worthy of support. Even among those who indicate their support for the government’s actions (for example, in the form of support to the referendum curated by the ruling party), the dissatisfaction with the direction of the country’s politics, and the credit given to protest movements are very significant. These may have contributed to the support that Pashinyan and his movement was able to garner from the people.
References
- Europe in Law Association in the Framework of the Citizen Observer Initiative. (2018) “Observation Mission Report: Parliamentary Elections of the Republic of Armenia Held on 2 April 2017”. Retrieved from https://www.citizenobserver.am/getGuide?file_name=BookEnglishApril2final.pdf on 04/05/2018.
- The Caucasus Research Resource Centers. (2008-2017) “Caucasus Barometer”. Retrieved through ODA – http://caucasusbarometer.org on 02/05/2018.
[1] The actual question text was as follows: “Under the present system of government in Armenia, do you completely agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree, or completely disagree that people like yourself are treated fairly by the government?” The responses were then coded from a 4-point scale into a 2-point scale of agreement and disagreement. See http://caucasusbarometer.org/en/cb-am/FAIRTRT/
[2] Europe in Law, “Observation Mission Report”, 8.
[3] The actual question texts used in the survey were as follows: “Please tell me to what extent do you support or not the constitutional reform to be implemented in Armenia?”; and “There are different opinions regarding the direction in which Armenia’s domestic politics are going. Which of the following would you personally agree with?” The frequencies in the referendum question were calculated without the option “I have not heard about this reform”. See http://caucasusbarometer.org/en/cb2015am/SUPCONST-by-POLDIRN/
[4] The actual question texts used in the survey were as follows: “In July 2016, a group of people calling themselves Sasna Tsrer seized the building of the Patrol-Guard Service Regiment of Armenia. People reacted differently to this action, some strongly condemning and others fully supporting it. Using this CARD, please tell me whether you condemn or support Sasna Tsrer‘s actions?”; and “There are different opinions regarding the direction in which Armenia’s domestic politics are going. Which of the following would you personally agree with?” http://caucasusbarometer.org/en/cb2017am/SUPTSRER-by-POLDIRN/
The content of this blog is the sole responsibility of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of CRRC-Armenia.