Corruption a major problem in Armenia, public opinion poll says

By Mark Dovich

Four years after the Velvet Revolution, fueled in part by widespread frustration with perceived government corruption in Armenia, many Armenians still say corruption is a major problem in the country.

That is according to new numbers from the Caucasus Research Resource Center. From last October to November, the organization conducted a major public opinion survey, interviewing a representative sample of over 1,500 Armenians.

Strikingly, the majority of respondents said seven forms of corruption — ranging from nepotism and conflicts of interest to bribe-taking and money laundering — remain “common” in Armenia.

Many Armenians continue to see corruption in a wide variety of institutions, with over half of those polled saying 14 out of 24 key bodies were “corrupt to a great extent” or “corrupt to some extent.”The bodies perceived to be most corrupt were the media (

The proportion of respondents saying that corruption had a “very big” impact rose by about 6 points since a previous CRRC corruption survey from 2019, one year after the Velvet Revolution. The proportion of those answering that corruption had a “rather big

Overwhelming majority of those polled supported five anti-corruption initiatives that the Armenian government has floated, even while most people said they were unaware of many anti-corruption efforts that the government has already undertaken.For instance

The poll results have a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.

Corruption a major problem in Armenia, public opinion poll says

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