Baku office of Republicans Institute held national survey among citizens in connection with parliamentary elections

The office presented the results of the survey exclusively to APA.

According to the results of the survey, the Azeris express a degree of satisfaction with the status quo in the country. While this level of satisfaction may seem at odds with their deep concerns about the economy and living conditions, Azeris base their feelings more on their hopes for the future than their concerns about the current situation.

Specifically, many Azeris are hopeful that the BTC pipeline will improve their living conditions and economic fortunes. Also fueling the positive outlook is the perception among some Azeris that their financial situation and living conditions have seen some improvement over the last few years. A candidate needs to link how fixing what is broken (corruption, education, etc) is an important step to realizing Azerbaijan’s potential.

Underneath this optimism, Azeris express deep concerns about their present situation. Specifically, citizens give their local economy and local living conditions very poor scores. The quality of basic services (gas, water, electricity) tops the list of citizens’ concerns, followed by economic issues. These two issue clusters totally dominate the agenda. Parliamentary candidates need to emphasize these issues when communicating with citizens. While “free and fair elections” are important, the message does not motivate average Azeris.

People care about the things that impact their everyday lives (jobs, basic services). As a candidate you need to communicate to voters that you understand their plight and have a plan to make their lives better. The reform theme that works with average voters is not “free and fair elections,” but the elimination of corruption. Azeri citizens believe that the elimination of corrupt practices is essential to improve the country’s economy.

Candidates can gain traction with voters by linking their hopes for the future with the call for ending corruption within society. Azeris concerns about corruption may explain why they display little trust in many of the nation’s institutions. Specifically, the police, local municipal officials and the courts receive very low trust ratings from Azeri citizens.

A majority of Azeris disapprove of the job Parliament is doing and very few citizens believe Parliament or their specific MP shares the same priorities as they do. Again, Parliamentary candidates need to emphasize that they care about the issues that impact average citizens’ everyday lives – and that those issues will be their focus if elected.

Indeed, we tested several messages a potential candidate for Parliament could use during a campaign and the messages that dealt most specifically with everyday concerns (basic services and corruption) received the highest scores from respondents. Finally, the profile of a likely voter – or more specifically, the voter who is unlikely to vote – in the upcoming election is perhaps the most interesting finding from this survey.

In this survey, status quo voters – Azeris who express the highest satisfaction with the direction of the country and government – are significantly more likely to participate in the upcoming election than the citizens who express dissatisfaction with the direction of the country. The implication of this finding is that the “status quo” base is much more energized and interested in this election than the “change” forces – meaning that “status quo voters” will likely turnout in higher numbers. The lack of intensity on the “change” side may be explained by a couple of factors. First, it is possible that these voters do not believe their vote matters or will not be counted. In that case, “change” candidates need to build the case for why voting is so important. The other, and possibly more important, factor driving this sentiment could be that there is a disconnect between what “change” voters care about and what they are hearing from “change” candidates. “Change” candidates can gain more traction and motivate more voters by emphasizing quality of life issues over political issues.