The strange story of the opinion polls

Jafar Shirali nia

The first surprising presidential election in Iran took place on Khordad 2, 1376, with the election of Seyyed Mohammad Khatami. Among the interesting aspects of this election were the opinion polls conducted beforehand, which largely did not align with the final results.

Following Khatami's victory, the Gazette newspaper reflected a poll conducted a month prior by Tehran Times, which involved 1,000 participants. The poll indicated over 40% support for Nateq Nouri, 33% for Khatami, and the remainder for two other candidates or invalid votes.

The survey was conducted among the people of Tehran, where Khatami was expected to receive a higher vote. The author questioned how such a discrepancy between the polls and the actual results occurred, asking, “Did everyone change their mind in just a month?”

The response suggested that this was not the case, attributing the difference to the public nature of the polling, where women played a significant role, as they often faced difficulties speaking with strangers in Iranian society. Many of Khatami's votes came from women.

This discrepancy in the announced polls and final results also had political roots. Abbas Akhoundi, who was then aligned with the right and opposed Khatami, stated, “From late Ordibehesht, Nateq's poll numbers were declining. It’s difficult to reverse a downward trend in an election.”

However, some at the time, like Mohammad Reza Bahonar, a key figure on the right, did not view the momentum for Khatami as particularly real. To prove his point, Bahonar frequently cited poll results leading up to the election that favored their candidate. On Farvardin 20, the Iran newspaper quoted Bahonar’s speech stating, “Polls conducted by allied organizations and even the opposing camp (supporters of Dr. Khatami) indicate that Nateq Nouri will win the upcoming presidential election.”

His way of reporting the polls was also intriguing, as on Ordibehesht 1, the Resalat newspaper quoted him saying, “According to daily poll results, Nateq Nouri is far ahead of other candidates.”

The right-wing took control of the narrative around the polls to show that, contrary to what Khatami's supporters believed, he was not making significant gains in the polls, which angered them. The Ebrar newspaper wrote in a note titled "Until the Election," “People do not expect anyone to introduce themselves differently from what they are... to talk about populism while their actions indicate otherwise.”

The note continued: “Speaking to different ethnic groups based on their tastes is not a commendable approach. Deceit in transactions is forbidden. Planners mistakenly think that if they emphasize a specific characteristic of their candidate among so-called common people, villagers, and tribes, and focus on another characteristic among intellectuals, which may even ridicule the first characteristic, they will achieve a result... People vote based on the individual's character, their background, their performance, and their associates.”

Bahonar tells me two decades after that election that he and Nateq realized “the downhill trend had begun” almost a month before the election day. However, they believed the election would ultimately go to a second round and remarked that the gap in votes that emerged was “beyond our imagination.”