[Marxism] The Iranian People Speak from Washington Post

[David Walsh <davidrail68@xxxxxxxxx>]

The Iranian People Speak
By Ken Ballen and Patrick DohertyMonday, June 15, 2009The election 
results in Iran may reflect the will of the Iranian people. Many experts are 
claiming that the margin of victory of incumbent President Mahmoud 
Ahmadinejad was the result of fraud or manipulation, but our nationwide public 
opinion survey of Iranians three weeks before the vote showed Ahmadinejad 
leading by a more than 2 to 1 margin -- greater than his actual apparent margin 
of victory in Friday's election.THIS STORYWhat Do Iranians Want?Some Good in a 
Bad ElectionThe Iranian People SpeakWhile Western news reports from Tehran in 
the days leading up to the voting portrayed an Iranian public enthusiastic 
about Ahmadinejad's principal opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, our scientific 
sampling from across all 30 of Iran's provinces showed Ahmadinejad well 
ahead.Independent and uncensored nationwide surveys of Iran are rare. 
Typically, preelection polls there are either conducted or
 monitored by the government and are notoriously untrustworthy. By contrast, 
the poll undertaken by our nonprofit organizations from May 11 to May 20 was 
the third in a series over the past two years. Conducted by telephone from a 
neighboring country, field work was carried out in Farsi by a polling company 
whose work in the region for ABC News and the BBC has received an Emmy award. 
Our polling was funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.The breadth of 
Ahmadinejad's support was apparent in our preelection survey. During the 
campaign, for instance, Mousavi emphasized his identity as an Azeri, the 
second-largest ethnic group in Iran after Persians, to woo Azeri voters. Our 
survey indicated, though, that Azeris favored Ahmadinejad by 2 to 1 over 
Mousavi.Much commentary has portrayed Iranian youth and the Internet as 
harbingers of change in this election. But our poll found that only a third of 
Iranians even have access to the Internet, while
 18-to-24-year-olds comprised the strongest voting bloc for Ahmadinejad of all 
age groups.The only demographic groups in which our survey found Mousavi 
leading or competitive with Ahmadinejad were university students and graduates, 
and the highest-income Iranians. When our poll was taken, almost a third of 
Iranians were also still undecided. Yet the baseline distributions we found 
then mirror the results reported by the Iranian authorities, indicating the 
possibility that the vote is not the product of widespread fraud.Some might 
argue that the professed support for Ahmadinejad we found simply reflected 
fearful respondents' reluctance to provide honest answers to pollsters. Yet the 
integrity of our results is confirmed by the politically risky responses 
Iranians were willing to give to a host of questions. For instance, nearly four 
in five Iranians -- including most Ahmadinejad supporters -- said they wanted 
to change the political system to give them
 the right to elect Iran's supreme leader, who is not currently subject to 
popular vote. Similarly, Iranians chose free elections and a free press as 
their most important priorities for their government, virtually tied with 
improving the national economy. These were hardly "politically correct" 
responses to voice publicly in a largely authoritarian society.Indeed, and 
consistently among all three of our surveys over the past two years, more than 
70 percent of Iranians also expressed support for providing full access to 
weapons inspectors and a guarantee that Iran will not develop or 
possess nuclear weapons, in return for outside aid and investment. And 77 
percent of Iranians favored normal relations and trade with the United States, 
another result consistent with our previous findings.Iranians view their 
support for a more democratic system, with normal relations with the United 
States, as consonant with their support for Ahmadinejad. They do not want
 him to continue his hard-line policies. Rather, Iranians apparently see 
Ahmadinejad as their toughest negotiator, the person best positioned to bring 
home a favorable deal -- rather like a Persian Nixon going to China.Allegations 
of fraud and electoral manipulation will serve to further isolate Iran and are 
likely to increase its belligerence and intransigence against the outside 
world. Before other countries, including the United States, jump to the 
conclusion that the Iranian presidential elections were fraudulent, with the 
grave consequences such charges could bring, they should consider all 
independent information. The fact may simply be that the reelection 
of President Ahmadinejad is what the Iranian people wanted.Ken Ballen is 
president of Terror Free Tomorrow: The Center for Public Opinion, a nonprofit 
institute that researches attitudes toward extremism. Patrick Doherty is deputy 
director of the American Strategy Program at the New America
 Foundation. The groups' May 11-20 polling consisted of 1,001 interviews across 
Iran and had a 3.1 percentage point margin of error.






      
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