TOPIC OF THE WEEK: Inside the seductive complexity of Armenia's election math
Two fresh polls were released in Armenia over the past two weeks, which allows me to tighten up my predictions about how the elections will evolve in about a month's time. The polls are valuable as it has been now two months since the previous batch of surveys were produced, so that the new results take into account the now well established structure of the competing parties and alliances. I derive three key conclusions.
First, one of the new polls is in fact the second release of the EVN Report, so we get a chance to assess the evolution of the data produced from the same pollster. It shows a minor, yet still meaningful, shift of voter preferences in favor of Civil Contract over Feb-Apr, which suggests that there might be a building tendency towards improving results for the incumbent.
Second, based on the existing batch of polls, I simulate a couple of scenarios that strike me as the most probable at the current juncture. A common feature across the scenarios is that three entities definitely enter Parliament, including the ruling Civil Contract and the opposition Strong Armenia and Prosperous Armenia. In this case, the other key opposition entity, the Armenia Alliance, falls out as it is currently "on the fence" and does not enjoy the more comfortable margins of the other contenders. In the alternative scenario, the Armenia Alliance passes the threshold and enters Parliament. These two scenarios generate a possible range for Parliament seats for Civil Contract of 54 to 59. That would be enough for Pashinyan to form a single-party government in the 101-seat assembly, although the majority would nevertheless fall short of the 71 seats won in the previous 2021 elections.
Third, it is still the case that a significant share of voters in the polls are undecided (slightly more than a third) and this represents a key risk to any quantitative assessment. I calculate that the break-even point for the undecided voters that would allow the united opposition to claim just enough seats to form a government is 73% (i.e., the share of undecided that needs to lean towards the opposition). Even this is not guaranteed as the three opposition forces may still be unable to coalesce around a single program to lead Armenia. In this case, a runoff may be necessary between the two leading contenders, Civil Contract and Strong Armenia, to determine the final winner. I feel that the 73% bar is a high one to pass, but nothing should be ruled out at this point.
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