IDEALS

WASHINGTON, (Sep. 19, 2009) IPS/GIN – A new survey of Iranian
public opinion released here Saturday suggests majority domestic
support for both him and the country’s basic governing
institutions.

The survery was received skeptically by some Iran specialists who
suggested that the surprising results could be explained by fear
of retaliation, particularly in light of the regime’s harsh
crackdown against the opposition throughout the summer.

Four out of five of the 1,003 Iranian respondents interviewed in
the survey released by WorldPublicOpinion.org (WPO), a project of
the highly respected Program on International Policy Attitudes
(PIPA) of the University of Maryland, said they considered
Ahmadinejad to be the legitimate president of Iran.

Sixty-two percent of respondents said they had “a lot of
confidence” in the declared election results, which gave
Ahmadinejad 62.6 percent of the vote within hours of the polls’
closing Jun. 12 and which were swiftly endorsed by the Islamic
Republic’s Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Three of four
respondents said Khamenei had reacted correctly in his endorsement.

Opposition candidates and their supporters contested the official
results, setting off mass protests centred in Tehran. At least 30
people were reported killed and thousands more arrested by the
regime’s paramilitary and security forces in the days and weeks
that followed in what most analysts consider the most serious
domestic challenge to the Islamic Republic in its 30-year history.

The new poll, which was conducted Aug. 27-Sep. 10 by native Farsi
speakers who interviewed respondents by telephone from outside
Iran, also found that 63 percent of respondents favour restoring
diplomatic relations with the United States; 18 percent said they
“strongly” favour renewing ties; 43 percent said they favoured it
“somewhat”.

Twenty percent said they “strongly favoured” engaging in “full,
unconditional negotiations” between Tehran and Washington, while
40 percent said they favoured such talks “somewhat”.

While a majority still backs such talks, however, the latest
results showed some flagging of enthusiasm. As recently as four
months ago, another survey group, Terror Free Tomorrow (TFT), found
that 40 percent of respondents “strongly favoured” such talks, and
20 percent “somewhat”.

The new survey also found widespread scepticism about U.S.
intentions. Three out of four respondents said the U.S.
“definitely” (57 percent) or “probably” (18 percent) wanted to
“impose American culture on Muslim society”. Similar percentages
said Washington’s goals included “maintain(ing) control over the
oil resources of the Middle East” and “weaken(ing) and divid(ing)
the Islamic world”.

While Barack Obama found significantly more favour among
respondents than his predecessor, George W. Bush, did in a similar
poll conducted by WPO 18 months ago, nearly six in 10 told
interviewers they had “no confidence at all” in the new U.S.
president “to do the right thing regarding world affairs”.

And despite widely hailed efforts by Obama to reassure Muslims
worldwide about U.S. intentions – notably in speeches in Istanbul
and Cairo and in a special Nowruz greeting for Iranians – a similar
percentage of respondents said they believed that he “does not
respect Islam”.

“While the majority of Iranian people are ready to do business with
Obama, they show little trust in him,” said Steven Kull, WPO’s
director.

The new survey – the first since the Jun. 12 elections by a major
U.S. polling organisation – comes at a critical moment both within
Iran, where renewed protests involving tens of thousands of
opposition supporters broke out during the annual Qods (Jerusalem)
Day demonstrations in Tehran Friday – and in relations between
Tehran and the major western powers, including the United States.

Critical talks between Iran, the United States, the four other
permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, and Germany
(P5-plus-one) are set to begin Oct. 1. While Iran has proposed a
wide-ranging agenda, the Obama administration, backed by the EU3
- France, Britain and Germany – has made clear its top priority is
to curb Tehran’s nuclear programme.

Washington has indicated it will push for the imposition of
“crippling” economic and other sanctions if the talks do not make
tangible progress toward that goal by early next year.

Some Iran specialists, persuaded that the regime in Tehran has been
weakened internally by the post-election unrest, have argued that
Ahmadinejad, whose appearance at the opening of the U.N. General
Assembly in New York next week is expected to attract thousands of
protesters, and Khamenei may be more eager to compromise at the
negotiating table in order to shore up their position at home.

Some analysts, notably neo-conservatives closely identified with
Israel, have asserted that negotiations are a waste of time and
that the regime has become so unpopular that imposing tough
sanctions now could bring about its collapse.

The WPO survey, however, casts serious doubt on the latter
assumption, in particular. In addition to the broad acceptance of
Ahmadinejad as the “legitimate president”, the poll found a
relatively high degree of confidence in the country’s main
governing institutions.

Nearly three out of four respondents, for example, expressed either
“a lot” (38 percent) or “some confidence” (34 percent) in the
Ministry of Interior, which ran the election; 85 percent expressed
either “a lot” (64 percent) or “some” (21 percent) confidence” in
Ahmadinejad himself; and 83 percent expressed “a lot” (52 percent)
or “some” (31 percent) confidence in the police. Six in 10 said
they were comfortable with the extent of Khamenei’s power.

And about eight in ten respondents said they were either “very” or
“somewhat satisfied” with the process by which the authorities are
elected” in Iran – an increase of 22 percent over another WPO
survey taken in February 2008. Two-thirds of respondents said they
considered the June election to be “completely free and fair”.

Questioning the WPO’s conclusion, Farideh Farhi, an Iran scholar
at the University of Hawaii, said: “If I were in Iran and someone
called me to ask those direct questions, I would be leery of
answering them honestly or directly “I have to ask whether fear
may have been a factor in the results.”

Indeed, as noted by PIPA’s director, Stephen Kull, the refusal of
one out of four respondents to say whom they voted for in the
election was an “extremely high number” and “…suggests that
people have some discomfort with this topic”. Given that
discomfort, he said, “the findings on voting preference are not a
solid basis for estimating the actual vote”.

Fifty-five percent of respondents said they voted for Ahmadinejad;
14 percent said they voted for former Prime Minister Mir Hussein
Mousavi; and a total of four percent said they voted for the two
other candidates, Mohsen Rezaei and Mehdi Karroubi.

Asked for whom they would vote if the election were repeated, 49
percent of respondents chose Ahmadinejad; eight percent, Mousavi;
and three percent, Rezaei and Karroubi. Thirteen percent said they
would not vote, while 26 percent said they didn’t know (seven
percent) or refused to answer (19 percent).

Gary Sick, an Iran expert at Columbia, agreed that fear could have
played a role in the survey results but suggested that the ability
of the regime to control information consumed by the general public
- as opposed to elite sectors where strong divisions have clearly
emerged since the election – “is greater than we given them credit
for”.

“A lot of the (survey) results look like they could have been
scripted by the regime,” he told IPS. “You can read it one of two
ways: either people are afraid to say things that could get them
into trouble, or it could simply be that’s what they’re told day
in and day out through public media, and that’s where they get most
of their information.”

While about 69 percent of respondents said they lived in urban
areas, only one in five said they accessed the Internet at least
once a week or followed radio and satellite broadcasts of BBC or
Voice of America.

Sick also suggested that the poll’s use of telephone landlines may
have resulted in an under-representation of the more “plugged in,
younger generation” that relies much more heavily on cellphones.