Poll: Haniyeh beats Abbas in West Bank

[bemildred]

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The previous poll, which was conducted last December, gave Hamas only 28%, while the current one put the movement's popularity at 33%.

The pollsters did not offer any explanation as to why Abbas's popularity plummeted from 48% last December to 45% in March. Three months ago, Haniyeh received only 38%, while this time he got 47%, the poll revealed.

However, the poll showed that if jailed Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti were to run against Haniyeh, he would win by 61% to 34%.

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The talks are being held under the auspices of the Egyptian government. Sources close to Hamas and Fatah said that representatives of Egypt's General Intelligence Service were expected to participate in the negotiations, which will last for 10 days.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1236603390355&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

1. a 3% drop is "plummeted"? Really?

Someone should get the J-Post a statistician to explain to them margin of error.

[bemildred]

2. Poll: Hamas more popular after Gaza offensive

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"Despite the visible increase in the popularity of Hamas and Haniyeh", the pollsters reported, the overwhelming majority, 71 percent, believes Palestinians are worse off than they were before the war.

The survey said Haniyeh would garner 47 percent support, beating Abbas with 45 percent, if a presidential election was held today. Three months ago, Abbas received 48 percent and Haniyeh 38 percent.

But if the competition were between Haniyeh and Marwan Barghouti, the popular Fatah leader currently imprisoned by Israel, Barghouthi would win by 61 percent to 34 percent, the survey showed.

Fatah, however, remains the most popular faction with 40 percent of overall support, compared to 42 percent last December, it said. The popularity of Hamas in the same period increased from 28 percent to 33 percent in the latest poll.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1069762.html

[thereismore]

3. Prediction: Barghouti will be set free before elections. nt

[bemildred]

4. It sounded like a "Get out of jail free" card for him to me.

But you can't always rely on reason with this sort of thing.

[geek tragedy]

5. Does reason ever hold in that corner of the world?

I mean, we have Hamas, a neutered PA, Bibi + Lieberman, and people talk about a peace process.
:wtf:

[LeftishBrit]

6. Not to mention Tony Blair as a peace envoy!

[ProgressiveMuslim]

15. I predict Barghouti will rot in jail.

What would Israel do if they actually had to put up or shut up?

[azurnoir]

8. Kind of torn on that one

part of me says it's a lock him up for ever and ever card and the other says let him out and if he wins the election then the entire PA could be called a terrorist organization and then certain parties could quite self righteously walk away from any negotiation

[bemildred]

12. But you need to have someone to walk away from, on those occasions when

you want to walk away. You can't just walk away from nobody.

[azurnoir]

7. The 3 guesses and the first 2 don't count award

of the day goes to this quote

The pollsters did not offer any explanation as to why Abbas's popularity dropped from 48% last December to 45% in March.

[oberliner]

10. Yet his popularity went up in Gaza

The drop only occurred in the West Bank.

How would you explain that discrepancy?

[oberliner]

9. Why is Abbas more popular in Gaza than in the West Bank?

Interesting that in Gaza, Abbas would defeat Haniyeh by 6 points according to this poll.

[bemildred]

11. Well, as you may or may not have observed, I don't have much "faith" in polls.

The result for Barghouti is the only thing that stands out to me, and perhaps Haniyeh's gain vis-a-vis Abbas. In Barghouti's case, he has the advantage of being in jail, and hence not culpable for his inability to affect events. WRT Haniyeh, he has the advantage of being in Damascus, and so not culpable etc. WRT Abbas, I'm surprised he did so well, but have no explanation for it, perhaps Palestinians are steadfast in their loyalties.

Since almost half of Palestinians are children, I wonder if they were polled too, and if their opinions can be taken to mean much in any long-term sense, if they were.

I posted it mainly because it doesn't suggest that the "Gaza Offensive" had much effect, or much of the effect it was supposed to have, or something like that.

[oberliner]

13. According to their website, they only poll people 18 and over

PSR sampling process goes trough three stages (1) randomly selecting population locations (clusters or blocs) using probability proportionate to size; (2) randomly selecting households from the population locations using updated maps; (3) selecting a person who is 18 years or older from among the persons in the house using Kiesh tables' method. The sample should be self-weighting, but we do make sure that the age groups we obtain are similar to those in the society using data from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. Reweighing is done if necessary.

A sample of 127 clusters is randomly selected using probability proportionate to size. Clusters are organized according to size (number of families) and geographic location (West Bank-Gaza Strip) in order to insure representation of all strata and clusters of all sizes. After selecting the cluster samples in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, 10 homes are selected in each cluster using systemic sampling. Total size of the sample is 1270 adults. The third stage in the sampling process occurs inside the house. Using Kish table, PSR fieldworkers select an adult (over 18 years of age) from among the adults in the house for the interview. Interviewees are assured of complete confidentiality before starting the interview.

Since the sample is a multistage one, two components constitute the variance in the estimates: the within-cluster variation and variation among clusters. We reduce the within-cluster variation by increasing the sample size selected from each cluster or bloc. By increasing the number of clusters selected, the error resulting due to variation among clusters is reduced. Among-cluster variation constitutes the biggest source of sampling error, while the error resulting from the within-cluster variation is negligible relative to the one among clusters. Hence, in this case the margin of error is dependent on the number of clusters considered in the survey. The number of clusters (127) and the number of households in each cell (10) ensure a maximum 3% sampling error.

http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/methodology.html

[bemildred]

14. Ah. That answers that.

It sounds like they at least have a consistent methodology. It would be interesting, as an experiment, to conduct three identical samples simultaneously, with the same methodology but different teams, and then see what the sample variance was among them, see how the results differ. But that would be expensive.

[oberliner]

16. Or they could have elections and see what happens

Isn't Abbas's term supposed to be up?

[azurnoir]

17. Abbas's term was up as of January 9 , I think n/t

[bemildred]

18. LOL.

Elections are scary, people might not vote the way they are supposed to. Polls are much safer, easier to control (or suppress) the result. You can do several polls and pick the best. There are lots of obvious tricks.