Aoun Polls High. Where’s The Catch?

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Lebanese politics

Why the presidential polls that consistently rank Michel Aoun as #1 are inherently flawed and misleading.

Today, Albalad revealed yet another presidential ( yet admitingly unscientific) poll with a strong showing by Mr. Aoun. He got 53% of the votes, with Mr. Geagea being a distant second with only 12% of the votes. The rest of the voices are scattered among 10 other candidates.

Is this the end of the story? Should we subscribe to the theory that Aoun is the most popular choice for the presidency?

While Aoun is indeed very popular, and could be the most popular presidential candidate, the poll is misleading for two reasons. The first is that a big bulk of that 53% of voters is made of Hezbollah supporters, who still don’t know who Hezbollah’s “secret candidate” is. But the second reason is the more important one.

Imagine a poll taking place in an American newspaper, with the American people having to pick one of the following names for the presidency: Rudy Guiliani, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Joe Biden, Bill Richardson, Dennis Kucinich and Christopher Dodd. What would the results look like?

For those of you unfamiliar with American politics, Guiliani is the only Republican while all the others are Democrats. The results could probably look something like this: Guiliani: 49% , Clinton: 22%, Obama 14%, Edwards 9%, Biden 3%…etc. You get the picture. Could we conclude then that Guiliani is the most popular Presidential candidate with Clinton a distant second?

The truth of the matter is this: If March 14 decide on their candidate and March 8 decide on theirs and we had a poll, it will be a neck to neck with leads slimmer than the error margin. But that doesn’t stop the spinners who love to publicize Aoun’s results.

Previous Beirut Spring posts:

• In September of last year, I wrote calling on western journalists to stop saying that “Lebanese Christians are allied with Hezbollah” • The following December, I brought up two polls that tried to probe the elusive Christian public opinion • Last August, I wrote a post that condemns March 14’s spinning of the Metn elections’ results as a loss for Michel Aoun

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Discussion

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Excellent point

Posted by Leb Christian | November 17, 2007, 1:45 pm
after all he always wins in the polls, let it be scientific or not.
and by the way , al-balad is pro-march 14, which means that most of the readers are march 14 supporters, so why didnt you take this into considaration although you counted all the votes for Aoun as chiaa suporters,based on what u had this assumption, coz i didnt see anywhere in the poll asking about the sect of the voter.
by discrediting the poll please try to use more objective analysis, otherwise your opinion counts nothing same as this poll.

Posted by marielle | November 17, 2007, 2:14 pm
Marielle,

Albalad is one of the few newspapers that is sympathetic to Aoun. But that’s beside the point. The other polls come from Assafir, from Tayyar.org and from the pro-Hezbollah Beirut Center for Research and Information.

They all for some strange reason pit Aoun against many other candidates , instead of say, conducting a poll where one has to chose between Aoun and Nassib Lahoud only.

PS: I never said Shiaa voters. I said Hezbollah supporters.

Posted by Mustapha | November 17, 2007, 2:46 pm
Moustapha,
You say “They all for some strange reason pit Aoun against many other candidates”

I can’t see what you find strange, they are not “pitting” Aoun against anyone! They are just listing all the candidates. Which is the simplest if not the only possible way to do it.

If March14 do not chose a single candidate what do you expect the people conducting the poll to do?

Usually you take the first two among all of the candidates, and move them to the final stage, but i suppose that’s not fair to our case so how do you chose the second candidate?

You suggested Lahoud, someone will suggest Harb and another other will suggest jeajea, how is albalad is supposed to decide?

I think the only valid criterias for a decision are: “chose the second highest” or “chose the candidate M14 adopts as their only candidate”.

Unless you want Al-Balad has to chose Aoun vs Ja3ja3 one week then Aoun vs Lahoud the next then Aoun vs Harb the next ?
Now that would be pitting Aoun against all of the others…

Posted by TAC | November 17, 2007, 9:24 pm
So…one of the few news media outlets sympathetic to Aoun discovers in a survey that the demographic of its readers are mostly pro-Aoun.
News Flash: Mother Hen And Her Chicks Found In Same Nest

Posted by JAS | November 18, 2007, 5:43 pm

Hello, my name is Mustapha and I blog in The Beirut Spring about Lebanese society and politics. I started in February 2005 after the killing of P.M. Rafik Hariri.