Poll Indicating Legitimacy of Ahmadinejad’s Victory Called into Question

Analysis by Sharif University alum, TehranBureau

[TEHRAN BUREAU] The only major doubt in the western media over significant fraud in Iran’s presidential election came with the publication of poll conducted by Terror Free Tomorrow, a non-profit group. The poll’s findings – which had put Mahmoud Ahmadinejad comfortably ahead of Mir-Hossein Mousavi – were interpreted by some western commentators as an indication that Ahmadinejad’s “victory” may have been legitimate.

In fact the poll, while it had interesting findings on public opinion, cannot be taken as a prediction of the election result and indeed was not presented in this way by organizers, Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty. Several limitations regarding the survey’s methodology have been discussed in the last few days. Notably, it was conducted before the election season even started in Iran. Interviews began on May 11th, a month before the election, and ended on May 20th. Although public opinion in western elections is generally set by such a late stage, a month is a long enough period for a drastic shift in the popularity of candidates in Iran. With the absence of solid political parties and government control of public media, the election season is very short and limited to the few weeks before the election.

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