US poll suggests Iranian election wasn't stolen....

AFTER all the bloodshed and protests, an opinion poll purports to show that the contested Iranian elections were not the fraud Washington and the Iranian opposition declares them to have been.

The poll made by international phone calls into Iran suggests that  most Iranians believe:

1/  That President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the election, despite evidence of widespread fraud.

2/ Most Iranians believe the current government is legitimate

3/  Most Iranians believe that if the opposition had won power it would have been more accommodating to US foreign policy

But surely there's something fishy about opinion polling a country where people are hardly  be free with their political opinions on the phone with foreigners. To suggest otherwise seems naive in the extreme.

Huge street protests followed the election in which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won 62.6% of the vote according to the bitterly contested results.

The election had a high turnout of 85% according to official figures.

For all the palaver over the Iranian elections and the death and destruction which followed,  there has been no shortage of commentary surrounding Iranian public opinion, but comparatively little evidence-based analysis. But is this reliable evidence? 

It seems a stretch to rely on this poll to reach firm conclusions. It may well be that the election was not stolen, but don't imagine for a minute that Iranians give their opinions over the phone to complete strangers.

The presentation is well worth watching as is the follow up discussion by this well informed panel.