This is also from Press TV. Does this news excite you? Are there problems with the poll? What else strikes you about this report?
-Amir
Ahmadinejad tops Iran's pre-election polls
-Amir
Ahmadinejad tops Iran's pre-election polls
Mon, 04 May 2009 17:14:36 GMT
Iran's incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has emerged as the country's favorite followed by Mir-Hossein Mousavi in a pre-election survey.
According to an opinion poll carried out in 32 Iranian cities, 53.6% favor President Ahmadinejad as their chief executive while some 21.9% are set to vote for Mousavi.
About 3.8% of the respondents in cities except other than Tehran have made their decision to vote for Reformist Mehdi Karroubi and some 1.7% will vote for independent candidate Mohsen Rezaei.
Approximately 23.7% of the respondents in the Iranian capital will vote for the incumbent Principlist president while some 14.3% will pick Mousavi as president.
According to the nation-wide poll, 57.2% from Iranian cities will vote in the country's June 12 presidential elections and 21.9% will abstain from voting.
While 50.1% of the people of Tehran say they will vote, 30.6% will not vote.
8 comments:
wow, amazing. Hopefully, people won't be boycotting the elections because the joke will be on them. I agree with vtsy2037 about the accuracy of the poll. Perhaps the Obama administration could influence election results by saying something positive. (hint at the possibility of lifting sanctions?) Although Obama said a lot about opening up to Iran if elected, not much has changed between Bush and Obama in terms of Iran. With the future uncertain, maybe some in Iran are clinging on to Ahmedinejad, thinking that his pursuit of the nuclear program might be the only chance of survival for Iran. Given the legacy of Khatami's failed promises, I think it would be incorrect to assume that all young voters will automatically support a reformist candidate.
The biggest thing that jumps out to me is the fact that over 30% of people in Tehran will not vote in the election. This is disheartning in the fact that a reformist president will be incredibly hard to elect in elections yet to come. The disillusionment in the political process of many Iranians says that a large portion of the populace have no faith in their quasi-democratic government. In some instances this might send a signal to the countries leaders that they must be open to change, to bring in the faith and support of more of their populace. However, in Iran this disengagement of progressives from the political establishment will likely only strengthen conservatives both now and the future.
It is interesting to note that Ahmadinejad will likely get as much or more of his countries vote as Obama did (percentage wise much more because of abstainers). Onlike Obama, despite Ahmadinejad likely large victory to come, he will not have as much of his populace supporting him--if one were to poll Iran, Obama's favorability rating would crush Ahmadinejad's.
It is incredibly disappointing that 30 percent of the Iranian population will not vote in the upcoming election. It would have definitely been better for the reformist candidate to have everyone voting. The fact that so many people are choosing to abstain is actually quite frightening. This will only leave the election wide open for Ahmadinejad. Even though he may have lost popularity with the citizens of Tehran he could still win, which would be disastrous because no progress will be made. It's up to the Iranian youth to decide, seeing as how they are the majority of the population now. If people boycott the election, things will only end badly. The dominant political sphere will simply be able to appoint their own candidate. I am very curious as to how the votes will turn out.
Like the few posts above me, I was really surprised that 30% of the people in Tehran will not vote in the upcoming election. I wonder why the Iranian citizens would not jump up as fast as possible and vote, no questions asked. It is an opportunity to made some change if they are not happy with Ahmedinejad, but maybe the people are just exhausted and don't think that much could be done from neither of the candidates.
I would have to research this, but I would really want to know what these candidates are campaigned about and what demographic they are trying to hit. Maybe that is whythe numbers are upsetting. I also wonder how many people were actually polled to see if this accurrately portrays the population.
for me, The 30% of people that will not vote in the election is very normall for me. There is a belief amon many Iranians that there vote does not count since the ellection is not a rightous process. I say this becuase i know people from Iran that are not voting because of this reason.
also, If all the television channels, newspaper are government owned, why shouldnt the government have an extra hand it the election and the way pollings are processed?
I just dont believe this is a just and true election.
This is truly surprising to me. Let's hope there's a turn-around
I'd be interested to hear more about this- whether they asked for reasons for voting a certain way. I remember the discussion about 'fire with fire'- i.e that Bush needed an Ahmedinejad, but it seems like Iran will look like the crazy man out if he wins again and has to deal with Obama's coolness. I just read Ebtekar withdrew from the race, and wonder how this will affect it?
It seems to me that in a state such as Iran, it is possible that those who dissent from the ruling party may not be as likely to admit it in a poll. One of the pillars of dictatorship, and to a lesser degree quasi-democratic governments, it is always a conundrum trying to gauge your level of support. The nature of your government system makes people less likely to indicate their true beliefs.
This is, of course, not totally fair. Iran is not Kazakhstan. The opportunity for dissent against the elected leadership is open and the chance of any kind of retribution is extremely small. Yet, at the same time, I have my doubts that the polls in Iran are all that accurate. After all, how often are American polls TOTALLY wrong?
I am sure if Iranians get correct information, they will change their in one night and VOTE FOR MR. MOUSAVI.Ahmadinejad is the president of Iran and all peace loving people.
Thanks
Sam
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