Dilijan, Tavoush Region, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2008

As part of its Decision 2008 coverage of the 19 February presidential election, ArmeniaNow has started to examine the opinions of voters on certain issues rather than often partisan analysts and activists in the country. In the first, the online publication examines the expectations Armenia’s 530,000 pensioners have from the next president.

Interestingly, and almost certainly aware of the potential influence over half a million senior citizens can have on the outcome of next month’s presidential election, the prime minister has already increased pensions despite saying that such a move was impossible when the Armenian Revolutionary Federation — Dashnaktsutyun (ARF-D) advocated such a move during last year’s parliamentary election.

If that move was calculated to say the least, then the tactic seems to have paid off to some extent. However, as with other voters, there is a lot of skepticism too.

Ofik Hakobyan, 66, from Kapan does not anticipate anything from the elections, but wants life to get better at least for the youth, if not for elderly.

She knows the candidates but has no idea about their campaign platforms. “Well, Serzh said that pensions would be raised again. I haven’t heard it from anybody else, maybe all of them will say the same thing during the campaign.”

[…]

Anush Kyureghyan, 83, says she won’t vote for anybody, because she’s been deprived of her benefit, and she lives alone, whereas “there are people who receive a pension, and have a job, and have somebody helping them, but still receive a benefit…” She doesn’t know the candidates: “It doesn’t matter who will be elected, whoever it is he will care only for himself.” She’d like goods to be cheap, instead of raising pensions for a couple of pennies and raising the prices more.

The full post is available on the Armenia Election Monitor 2008.