YEREVAN. - Hayots Ashkharh daily conducted an interview with President Gevorg Poghosyan of the Armenian Sociological Association:

What are the developments in domestic politics prior to parliamentary elections?

There are conflicting evaluations. Many believe that [opposition Armenian National Congress] ANC stalled and, abandoning the idea of early elections, did not achieve any results. ANC had even threatened that, if its demands are not met, it would resort to other measures, yet it did nothing.       

But there are other assessments, as well, whose sources take into account that there are no one-step combinations in politics. ANC’s initiatives are lot more complex and multi-step, they have had fairly many and multi-layer consequences. ANC’s steps taken in the past three years showed that it became the only serious opposition force in our domestic politics. It is not a coincidence that the authorities did not conduct special talks and sit on the dialogue table with any other political force.          

ANC was able to monopolize the opposition domain…ANC is one of the few forces that has the prerequisites to be represented at the new parliament to be formed.   

Did result of the one-week continuous rallies, held in October, change these evaluations? 

… we should not think that ANC’s supporters are merely those who came to the [capital Yerevan’s Liberty] Square. These steps by ANC also clarified the opposition electorate’s orientation.