[...]Little Evidence Iranian Public Sees Government as Illegitimate

Indications of fraud in the June 12 Iranian presidential election, together with large-scale street demonstrations, have led to claims that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did not actually win the election, and that the majority of Iranians perceive their government as illegitimate and favor regime change.

An analysis of multiple polls of the Iranian public from three different sources finds little evidence to support such conclusions.

The analysis conducted by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland (PIPA), was based on:

• a series of 10 recently-released polls conducted by the University of Tehran; eight conducted in the month before the June 12 election and two conducted in the month after the election, based on telephone interviews conducted within Iran
• a poll by GlobeScan conducted shortly after the election, based on telephone interviews conducted within Iran
• a poll by WorldPublicOpinion.org (managed by PIPA) conducted August 27--September 10, based on telephone interviews made by calling into Iran[...]

Click to expand...

Councilman said:

If you were in fear of jail, torture or death would tell the truth to some pollster you don't know?

Click to expand...

The polls did reveal some reservations about the government. Less than a majority expressed full confidence in the Guardian Council (42%) and the Ministry of the Interior (38%). While over eight in ten said they were satisfied with the current system of government, in June less than a majority (49%) said they were very satisfied and this number dropped to 41% in July.

However none of the polls found indications of support for regime change. Large majorities, including majorities of Mousavi supporters, endorse the Islamist character of the regime such as having a body of Islamic scholars with the power to veto laws they see as contrary to sharia.

To address the possibility that the data collected within Iran may have been fabricated, PIPA compared the patterns of responses, including within subgroups, in data collected inside Iran to those collected by calling into Iran from the outside. Steven Kull comments, "The patterns of responses at many levels are so similar, whether the data was collected inside Iran or by calling into Iran, that it is hard to conclude that these data were fabricated."

Another concern is that Iranian respondents were not answering candidly out of fear of some type of reprisal for making statements in support of the opposition or critical of the regime, particularly in the post-election environment. As noted above, on some questions majorities expressed views that were less than fully laudatory of the government.

Click to expand...

The internet has proved to be invaluable to getting the truth both in and out, and that is why Obama wants to be able to control it here, along with Talk Radio

Click to expand...