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Iranians' Attitudes Toward Elections: a 2021 Survey

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Iranians' Attitudes Toward Elections: a 2021 Survey IRANIANS’ ATTITUDES TOWARD ELECTIONS: A 2021 SURVEY REPORT The Group for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in IRAN (GAMAAN) AMMAR MALEKI Assistant Professor of Comparative Politics, Tilburg University June 2021, The Netherlands This study was conducted independently and funded by voluntary public donations. We express our sincere gratitude to Dr. Pooyan Tamimi Arab for his contribution, and to all the volunteers who assisted us in one way or another. Any use of this research or parts thereof is permitted only if properly cited: Maleki, Ammar 2021. Iranians’ Attitudes Toward Elections: A 2021 Survey Report. Published online, gamaan.org: GAMAAN. The Group for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran (GAMAAN) is an independent, non-profit research foundation registered in the Netherlands. Copyright © 2021 GAMAAN. All rights reserved. Website: www.gamaan.org E-mail: [email protected] Twitter: @gamaanresearch Telegram: /gamaanresearch Instagram: /gamaanresearch Survey summary • The survey titled “Election Survey” was conducted from May 27 to June 3, 2021. Around 80 thousand respondents participated in the study. The final sample used in this report consisted of 68,271 Iranians living inside Iran. This study’s findings reflect the views of literate Iranian residents aged above 19, who comprise 85% of the eligible voters in Iran. The results can be generalized to the target population with a 95% credibility level and credibility intervals of 5%. • The results show that around 75% of the population will not vote in the upcoming presidential election, which is held on June 18, 2021, while 18% say they will certainly vote, and 6% haven’t decided on their participation. Moreover, the willingness to vote in the City and Village Council elections resembles that of the presidential election. • While around 71% of the non-voters reported “the unfree and ineffective nature of elections in the Islamic Republic” as their reason for abstention, 7% reported the Guardian Council’s “disqualification of my preferred candidate” as their reason. About 2% declared that they will not vote due to the COVID-19 pandemic and “the health risk of standing in the voting queue”. • 15% of all eligible voters will vote for Ebrahim Raisi, 2% for Saeed Jalili, and less than 1% for any of the other candidates. Roughly 4% of the population haven’t decided, while about 2% declared to cast a blank vote. • Of those who intend to vote, 59% reported to vote for Ebrahim Raisi, 8% for Saeed Jalili, 3% for Abdolnaser Hemmati, 2.5% for Mohsen Rezaee, and less than 1% for Mehralizadeh, Ghazizadeh Hashemi, and Zakani. About 16% of those who intend to vote haven’t decided on their preferred candidate, while 9% say they will cast a blank vote. • In response to a question about an imagined, completely free election, the most popular candidates were Reza Pahlavi (29%), Ebrahim Raisi (15%), Nasrin Sotoudeh (11.5%), Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (10%), Narges Mohammadi (8%), Mohammad Nourizad and Masih Alinejad (both 7%), and Mohammad Khatami, Esmail Bakhshi, and Mir-Hossein Mousavi with around 4% of the votes. Among the proposed political figures in the survey, Hassan Rouhani was the least popular. • When asked about the most suitable type of government for Iran, 31% opted for a secular republic, 16% a secular constitutional monarchy, and 22% preferred an Islamic Republic as the best political system for Iran. About 31% reported to be inadequately informed for answering this question. • Among the Iranian respondents who live outside Iran (over 6 thousand people), about 54% voted in the 2017 presidential election, but only 4% declared to vote in the upcoming election. 1 Section 1: Sampling methods and sample characteristics 1.1. Survey and raw sample characteristics • The Group for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran (GAMAAN) conducted the “Election Survey” survey from May 27 to June 3, 2021. This survey was conducted online using a specialized and secure platform. • The sampling method was multiple chain-referral sampling through social media (Telegram, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Twitter). Around 80,000 respondents living inside and outside Iran participated in the study (see the Appendix for more methodological information). • According to Iran’s official statistics published in August 2020, more than 80 million people use the Internet, among whom 77 million are mobile Internet subscribers. On the other hand, as reported by the Iranian Students Polling Agency (ISPA) in February 2021, roughly 74% of Iranians over 18 use at least one social media platform. It is therefore possible to reach a substantial percentage of Iranians through the Internet and ask about their views. • The survey comprised 13 questions about religiosity and politics as well as 8 general and demographic questions (sex, age group, education level, province, urban/rural region, employment status, household income level, and voting behavior). • Respondents took part in the survey anonymously, feeling safer to express their real opinions than in telephone surveys or surveys conducted at respondents’ residence. • Approximately 92% of the respondents reported that they live in Iran. Multiple verification methods showed that around 1%, either intentionally or unintentionally, gave false information about being inside or outside Iran. • Iranians living inside Iran who responded to the survey were from all provinces, all socioeconomic strata, and from both urban and rural areas (see the Appendix for sample characteristics). 1.2. Preparing the refined sample • One survey question was designed to detect random responses and bot submissions. The forms with a wrong response to this question and forms with contradictory answers were excluded from the sample (for example, those who declared that they had not reached voting age in the 2017 presidential election but also chose their age as over 30, or those who declared that they live in Iran in one question but selected outside Iran in another question). 2 • Having taken into account the standard age groups as outlined in the 2016 Census report, the refined sample included only respondents above 19 years old who lived in Iran. • The refined sample size for respondents inside Iran was 68,271 respondents. All results in this report are extracted from this refined sample. • The target population consisted of literate Iranian residents above 19 years old (who were capable of using the Internet and reading the survey questions). As reported by the 2016 National Population and Housing Census, around 47 million Iranians are literate and above 19 years old. This accounts for 85% of the adult population of Iran. • In this report, the term “sample” refers exclusively to the refined sample, not the original raw sample. The term “population” refers only to the “target population,” not the overall population of Iran. • Samples obtained from online surveys generally do not properly overlap with the target population’s characteristics. Weighting is used to obtain a representative sample. This technique balances the sample in accordance with characteristics of the target population in question. The results were also verified through the sample matching method. The Appendix discusses the employed sample balancing, weighting methods, and reliability checks as well as the characteristics of the sample demography and the target population. 3 Section 2: Main findings All results and tables presented here are based on the “weighted sample” extracted from respondents inside Iran. The findings can be generalized to the whole population of literate Iranian residents above 19 years old, who account for 85% of the total adult population of Iran, with the respective credibility intervals and credibility level of 5% and 95% (which indicate this survey to be a non-probability survey and replace the margin of error and the confidence level). 2.1. Willingness to vote in the 2021 elections According to this study’s results, around 75% of the population will not vote in the upcoming presidential election (June 2021), while 18% will certainly vote, and 6% haven’t decided yet (Figure 1). Figure 1 4 Moreover, the willingness to vote in the City and Village Council elections resembles that of the presidential election (Figure 2). Figure 2 5 2.2. Reasons for abstention Respondents were also asked about their reason for abstention. Figure 3 shows that 71% of the non-voters chose “the unfree and ineffective nature of elections in the Islamic Republic” as their “main reason” for boycotting the election, while 7% gave as reason the Guardian Council’s “disqualification of my favorite candidate”. About 2% declared not to vote due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the “health risk of standing in the voting queue”. Also, 20% chose “other reason” for their abstention. Figure 3 6 2.3. Most popular candidate in the presidential election About 15% say they will vote for Ebrahim Raisi, 2% for Saeed Jalili, and less than 1% for any of the other candidates. Roughly 4% of the population haven’t made a decision regarding voting, while about 2% declared to cast a blank vote. Around 75% declared not to vote for any of the candidates (Figure 4). Figure 4 7 Of those who decided to vote, around 59% say they will vote for Ebrahim Raisi, 8% for Saeed Jalili, 3% for Abdolnaser Hemmati, 2.5% for Mohsen Rezaee, and less than 1% for Mehralizadeh, Ghazizadeh Hashemi, and Zakani (Figure 5). About 16% of these likely voters haven’t decided on a candidate, while 9% say they will cast a blank vote. Figure 5 8 2.4. Popularity of candidates in a free election Respondents were asked to imagine who they would vote for, if a completely free election were to be held in which representatives of diverse political orientations could participate. Respondents could choose from a list of political and social figures and had the option to write any other name that was not included in the list. It was possible to select multiple preferred candidates.
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