6 Political Parties Can Overcome 5% Threshold to Get into Parliament: Forecast

In the current situation, there are two powerful players in Armenia — the Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) and the Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) — then comes the Armenian National Congress (HAK) and then the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun, or ARF-D), Heritage Party and the Rule of Law (Orinats Yerkir) party, said Director of the Sociometr Independent Sociological Center, sociologist Aharon Adibekyan, speaking about the May 6 parliamentary elections to reporters in the Armenian capital today.

Adibekyan pointed out that these political parties have their own clearly defined, stable electorate and are able to pass the 5% threshold. The only question that remains now is how they can secure more votes.

The sociologist explained that according to findings from recent polls conducted by Sociometr, in the upcoming elections there will be more of an emphasis on socioeconomic issues, since this is what most interests the public.

In Adibekyan’s opinion, the party that will make the more convincing promise to improve the economic situation will get a larger portion of the votes. In this sense, the sociologist sees HHK’s and BHK’s advantage.

“Because these two parties have adopted the path to settling economic issues, while other parliamentary parties are more so [only] partly engaged in these matters. BHK raises purely economic issues — the political, it seems is secondary for the party. HHK approaches all issues proportionately but, nevertheless, is more of a pro-state party.

“As for HAK, it tries to present itself as a universal party that deals with all issues. This is why it moved from a radical opposition to a more centric opposition. It even changed its vocabulary, its slogans, but since it didn’t get the help it was expecting it returned to [its place as] radical opposition, which always wants to radically change everything. In this sense, HAK is forced to give some answer or another to all questions. But the issue is to what extent will voters believe their promises?” said Adibekyan.