Hrant Mikaelian - Election Aftermath and Polls in Armenia | Ep 559, Jun 20, 2026 [EP559]

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Guest(s):

• Hrant Mikaelian

Topics:

• Election aftermath and disputed legitimacy
• Threats against opposition parties
• Armenia-Russia tensions after vote
• EU lifeline for Armenian exports
• Polling failures and hidden votes
• Pashinyan and his cronies say that the votes received are not legitimate and were obtained as a result of bribes.
• The Anti-corruption committee presented a draft law to ban parties from elections.
• Pashinyan has promised that opposition leaders will go to jail
• No matter what, whether admin resources, effective bribery through irresponsible cash-back to large segments of the population
• How would you evaluate the outcome of this election?
• Is Pashinyan preparing a massive onslaught against the opposition by launching phony criminal cases and arresting many of them?
• Samvel karapetyan unified opposition?
• You noted that the Pashinyan regime is dissatisfied with the results of this election. Why?
• What is the recourse for the opposition? Should the opposition accept mandates?
• Is all of this talk about the EU buying up Armenian consumable goods just a psyop? Are the French really going to prefer Armenian brandy over their Cognac, Hennessy or Courvoisier?
• Vladimir Putin has withheld from congratulating Pashinyan. This is uncharacteristic for a “strategic partner”, plus only a couple of days ago Russia’s director of Foreign Intelligence Sergey Naryshkin said that Armenia’s elections were questionable. What is the message here to Armenia? Do you see Putin finally congratulating Pashinyan, and under what circumstances?
• Forecast Accuracy Score (RMSE): Measures how close a poll’s predicted vote shares were to the actual election results for both Civil Contract and the main opposition. Lower scores are better, with 0 representing a perfect prediction.
• Balance Accuracy Score: Measures how accurately a poll captured the overall balance of power between the government and the opposition, regardless of whether it overestimated or underestimated both sides. Lower scores are better, with 0 representing a perfect estimate of the final government-opposition gap.
• This chart doesn’t account for the Hidden Vote, which was very high in EVN and IRI.
• No poll came close to Civil Contract’s final result. Every poll significantly underestimated the ruling party.
• MPG had the best forecast accuracy. All three MPG polls beat EVN and IRI on RMSE.
• EVN and IRI had the best balance accuracy. They were closer to the final government-opposition gap.
• The “best” poll depends on the metric. MPG won on vote-share accuracy; EVN and IRI won on balance accuracy.
• MPG consistently underestimated Civil Contract. Even its best poll was well below the final result.
• EVN and IRI underestimated both sides. Their errors often offset each other.
• The June 3 MPG poll was the most accurate overall. It achieved the lowest RMSE (14.3%).
• MPG improved over time. Its forecasts moved closer to the final result as election day approached.
• EVN and IRI did not improve over time. Their later polls were not more accurate than earlier ones.
• Opposition support was easier to predict. Several polls came reasonably close to the final opposition result.
• The largest miss was Civil Contract’s surge. Every poll failed to capture its eventual level of support.
• Different pollsters captured different realities. MPG tracked vote shares better, while EVN and IRI tracked the overall balance better.
• Why do you think different pollsters produced such different estimates of opposition support?
• Are these differences more likely due to methodology, sampling, weighting, or something else?

Episode 559 | Recorded: June 18, 2026

#Armenia #ArmenianElections #HrantMikaelian #NikolPashinyan #CivilContract #ArmeniaRussia #Polling

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