Org-Quest/Prothom Alo's September 2013 poll

Earlier this month, the daily Bangla language paper, Prothom Alo published the results of an opinion poll conducted by Org-quest Research Ltd during the month of September 2013.

The poll was important for a number of reasons (to see the methodology used, see the end of this post)

First, the election in Bangladesh is supposed to happen before 24 January 2014 so it provided an opportunity to see what the country was thinking on a number of key issues;

Second, it provided an opportunity to see whether its findings reflected the most recent poll conducted by AC Nielsen/Democracy International in July 2013.

Thirdly, the poll involved a large sample size of 5000 people - almost double that of the AC Nielsen/DI polls) with a margin of error of only +/-1.39%, so all being equal the results should be more accurate.

Fourthly, Prothom Alo has been undertaking an annual poll for the last five years, so the poll will show interesting trends over this period.

Prothom Alo has been kind enough to share the full report of the survey with Bangladesh Politico, and so below are some of the main points - with some relevant comparisons to the AC Nielsen/DI poll that had earlier been reported in New Age.

ELECTION ISSUES

Voting Intent
The Prothom Alo poll found that 50 percent of people would vote for the BNP compared to only 37 percent for the Awami League - with the Jatiya party on 7 percent and the Jamaat on 3 percent.

	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013
AL	56%	46%	38%	35%	37%
BNP	25%	38%	43%	44%	50%
Jatiya	3%	6%	8%	12%	7%
Jamaat	3%	3%	4%	3%	3%

In July 2013, Nielsen/DI had found that BNP stood at 43 percent to 32 percent in BNP's favour – so the Prohthom Alo result shows much stronger support for the BNP (and indeed for the AL).

Indeed Nielsen/DI’s results – whose polls that I know of only started from June 2012 – have generally shown less strong support for the BNP than that of the AL: whilst Prothom Alo’s polls show the switch in popular support from AL to BNP taking place in 2011, this only happened in the Nielsen/DI polls in January 2013.

However, whilst the figures are somewhat different, they both tell basically the same story. There has been a big swing since the last election toward the BNP (with support somewhere between 43 and 50%) with the AL lagging behind (between 32 and 36%).

The Prothom Alo poll suggests that the undecideds/dont knows/wont say are at 14 percent - which could represent the percentage of the population not intending to vote at the election.

Election time government
In the Prothom Alo poll, 82% of those questioned supported holding the election under a neutral government – with only 18 percent supporting elections under a party government - down from 90% in a poll undertaken in April this year.

	2011	2012	Apr 2013	Sept 2013
Neutral Govt	73%	76%	90%	82%
Party Govt	25%	22%	8%	18%

The poll also showed that amongst those who supported a neutral government were 53% of those who supported the Awami League.

Whilst the Nielsen/DI poll results also shows the unpopularity of the idea of a political government holding elections, it showed that the support for a caretaker government had declined considerably between April and July 2013

The Election Commission

At the same time as holding strong support for a caretaker government, the Prothom Alo poll also showed that nearly half the country thought that the current election commission has the ability to hold a fair election. 48% responded affirmatively whilst 51% negatively.

In relation to those who thought that the EC could hold a fair election - 84% of these were AL and 24% were BNP.

This finding was not dissimilar to the Nielsen/DI July 2013 poll which showed that 52 per cent had faith in the capacity of the Election Commission in ‘holding free and fair elections under the current government.’ Only 32 per cent felt that the Election Commission was ‘not capable,’

Lack of participation of the BNP in the elections.

In the Prothom Alo poll, when people were asked if the election would be acceptable without the participation of the BNP, 90% replied negatively, Even amongst those who intended to vote for AL, 83% thought that the election will not be acceptable if BNP does not participate

WIDER POLITICAL ISSUES

Direction of the country
In the Prothom Alo poll, 60% of people thought that the country was going in the wrong direction – a significant different from the 2009 results which showed that 70% of people thought the that country was going in the right direction.

This is similar to the results in the July 2013 Nielsen/DI polls which found that 58% of people thought that country was going in the wrong direction, with 37% saying it was going in the right direction.

	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013
Country in right direction	70%	61%	42%	40%	40%
Country in wrong direction	29%	39%	57%	60%	60%

Running of the country

In the Prothom Alo poll, 57% of people were not satisfied with the running of the country. In 2009, this figure was only 29%.

	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013
Satisfied with running of the country	66%	58%	43%	46%	43%
Not satisfied	26%	34%	52%	49%	57%

Corruption
In the poll, the proportion of those who thought corruption has increased under this government went up from 49% in 2012 to 54%. At the end of the first year of AL’s rule this figure was only 34%.

	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013
Corruptoin increased	34%	37%	46%	49%	54%
Corruptoin decreased	42%	43%	40%	38%	34%
Unchanged	23%	20%	13%	12%	12%

Politicization of institutions
When asked whether ‘politicization’ in this regime has increased or decreased compared to that of BNP led government, 59% thought it had increased, whilst 25% thought it had decreased and 15% believed that it remained unchanged. (It remains unclear exactly what question was asked, and how people understood the meaning of ‘politicisation’).

When the poll was done in 2009, the numbers of people who thought politicization had increased was much the same as the number who though it had increased; but five years years later the poll found that more than twice the number of people believe that there hasdbeen increased politicization under the current government

	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013
Politicisation increased	41%	47%	51%	51%	59%
Politicisation decreased	36%	28%	27%	27%	25%
Politicisation unchanged	21%	23%	17%	17%	15%

Government’s dealing with the opposition:

In the Prothom Alo poll, 73% thought the government did not deal with the opposition appropriately – a figure that was only 42% at the end of the first year of the government On the other hand, number of persons who thought that it dealt with the opposition appropriately went down from 57% to 26% in the same period.

	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013
Appropriate	57%	38%	33%	27%	26%
Inappropriate	42%	60%	62%	70%	73%

War Crimes Trials
In September 2013, 80% of respondents agreed that those who had committed war crimes should be tried and punished with only 19% against it.

This was slightly down from the results in 2009 to a similar question, where 86% agreed and 80% did not.

However when the same people were asked about the ‘appropriateness’ of the process, only 40% agreed that the process was appropriate, with 59% thinking that it was not.

	2010	2011	2012	2013
Process is appropriate	52%	47%	44%	40%
Process is not appropriate	38%	47%	47%	59%

One problem with this particular results is that it is not clear from the survey results exactly what question was used to ask about the appropriateness of the trials

However, these results reflect those in the Nielsen/DI poll which found that 86 per cent of these voters who knew about the trials stating that they personally wanted the trials to proceed, with only 12 per cent against. However, when asked about the fairness of the process, 63 per cent (of those that knew about the trials) thought that the trials were unfair or very unfair

Banning of the Jamaat
When respondents were asked, if the political party, Jamaat-e-Islami should be banned, 70% responded negatively, with 29% in favor of such a ban.

These results were similar to those obtained in April 2013, where 65% were found to be against the ban and 25% in favour.

Government’s role in dealing with Yunus and Grameen Bank
In the September poll, 69% of respondents said that they did not support the role played by the government with Dr. Mohammad Yunus and Grameen Bank which whilst 27 % did agree. 4% said that they did not know

This is an increase in lack of support for the government from the 2012 poll results; this found that 60% did not support the government with 26% supporting and 14% not knowing.

It appears that the vast majority of those that did not know in 2012, had now decided that they were against the government in this policy area.

In 2012, when the question was previously asked, was an increased of 9 percentage points from 60% when a similar question was asked in 2000.

----------------

Methodology used

This is an excerpt from the survey document

1.1. Target Respondents: Adult males and females (18 years and above) who were enlisted as voters.

1.2. Geographical Coverage: The survey was nationally representative, covering 30 districts across all the 7 administrative divisions in both urban and rural areas.
1.3. Sample Size: n=5000, distributed amongst male & females in urban – rural areas proportionate to population as shown below.

Area Type	Male	Female	Total
Urban	617	633	1250
Rural	1879	1871	3750
Total	2496	2504	5000

1.4. Sampling Technique: The survey was conducted by adopting multi-stage stratified systematic random sampling technique to make the study as representative as possible. Estimated Margin of Error was: ± 1.39. The survey strictly adhered to the internationally accepted methodology and ethical standard as per the guideline of European Society for Opinion and Market Research (ESOMAR). As a member of ESOMAR, Org-Quest Research Limited complies with the ICC/ ESOMAR International Marketing and Social Research Practices.

Systematic random sampling technique was followed to locate and interview target respondents. All seven divisions were considered. In each division 3 to 6 districts (primary sampling units - PSU), depending on the size, were selected keeping geographical dispersion in mind. Having selected PSUs, required number of secondary sampling units or SSU (municipal ward in urban area and village in rural area) and sampling/starting points (SP) were selected randomly based on electoral roll. Around each randomly selected starting point/cluster, a predetermined number of households were contacted and interviewed; leaving four intervening households in between (interviewed every fifth household).

The Right Hand Rule was used for selection of households other than the Starting Point (SP). This rule states that after reaching the SP, the investigator will have to go to the households falling on the right hand side from the starting point. Not more than 5 interviews were conducted in each starting point.

Within each selected household, names of all household members were listed down in descending order of their age. Serial numbers were provided to all members aged 18 years and above and enlisted as a voter in descending order of age i.e. starting with the oldest member of the family and going down to the youngest member who has completed 18 years. In case of more than one eligible member in a household, one of the adults was selected randomly by using KISH Table* for interview. Only one member in selected household was interviewed.

* Use of Kish Table (a randomized selection method) helps selecting the right respondents from the right household with multiple eligible respondents. The Kish Table was developed by a famous statistician named L. Kish.

Why Daily Star's opinion survey is a waste of time and money

The National Public Perception Study (also called 'Opinion Survey') undertaken jointly by the Daily Star and the Asia Foundation, and published today in the paper's 12 page tabloid spread - and also providing the paper with its front page lead article - is, simply put, a waste of time and money.

This may seem harsh, but the survey is a classic example of a pseudo poll, dressed up as a survey that is representative of the country, but in fact is not and as a result has very limited value.

The poll should not be given anywhere near the kind of attention that should be given to the recent polls undertaken by Nielsen/Democracy International and by Prothom Alo - if indeed it should be given any attention at all.

This is why.

In order for a survey to have any value, and for the Daily Star/Asia Foundation to be able to argue that the results are representative of the whole country, the poll has to be done in scientific way - and most importantly to use random sampling in order to identify the respondents.

This survey does not do this.

The purpose of an opinion poll is to ask questions of a small sample of a population of people who can represent the attitudes, opinions, or projected behavior of all of the people from which the sample is obtained. In effect, the fundamental goal of an opinion poll is to come up with the same results that would have been obtained had every member of a population been interviewed.

The key to reaching this objective is a fundamental principle called 'equal probability of selection', which states that 'if every member of a population has an equal probability of being selected in a sample, then that sample will be representative of the population.'

So for an opinion poll to be undertaken successfully in Bangladesh, every adult Bangladeshi must have an equal chance of falling into the sample. How this is done is the key to the success or failure of any such opinion poll.

Whilst the Nielsen/DI (published in the New Age) and the Prothom Alo polls used methods to randomise the selection of respondents - the Daily Star/Asia Foundation poll did not use this method at all.

As a result, there is little reason to imagine that the results of their survey are in any way representative of the whole country - which is what the Daily Star projects as being the case.

The methodology written in the newspaper puts much effort into explaining how weighting was done to make sure that the respondents were representative of the urban/rural divide for example - but this makes no difference if the original sample is not randomly selected.

And can one even explain the rationale for dividing the 100 selected respondents in each district into 'ordinary citizens' and 'non-political elites'? Is this how the country is divided?

In fact the Daily Star/Asia Foundation has done a great disservice to those organisations/newspapers undertaking proper opinion polls in undertaking this survey.

Bangladeshis are only just beginning to get used to the idea of opinion polls - and whilst most people may not understand the science/statitics behind it, many have started to appreciate that properly done opinion poll can produce legitimate results

For the Daily Star/Asia Foundation to undertake a survey with such little scientific value confuses all of this - and diminishes the work done by the scientifically organised polls.

It is particularly inappropriate for them to have undertaken this survey at such a politically sensitive moment in the country's politics. As the results are pretty meaningless.

The odd thing about all all this is that the Daily Star has in the past commissioned proper polling organisations to undertake scientifically rigorous opinion polls, so one would imagine that the paper's management are aware of the reason why one does an opinion poll rather than the kind of survey undertaken by them this time. But obviously not.

I can imagine that the Daily Star might respond to this criticism by arguing that it never actually said that the survey was representative of the national population - saying that it only 'gathered impressions' from a cross section of groups within Bangladesh. However, if you read the front page article, that is not the impression that is given. The impression given to the reader is that this survey is representative of the country.

There are three other oddities about this survey

1. Why did the Daily Star/Asia Foundation poll ask the question, 'Which party will win' rather than 'Which party will you vote for'. These are two very different questions, and will undoubtedly result in different results. 

That 55% of people think that that BNP will win the election, and only 28% think that the AL will win says nothing about the actual voting intention of particular people - and it is unclear why one would ask that question.

2. Why did the newspaper do this survey in September when its sister paper Prothom Alo had commissioned its own opinion poll in the very same period?

3. Why did the paper not at least commission  a professional surveying organisation to do the work?

Bangladesh Nationalist Party's strategic advantage at risk

David Bergman

It may seen ridiculous to suggest that either of Bangladesh’s main political parties could these days ever be seated on any moral high ground, but in relation to the argument concerning the election time government, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party was on it, and now – arguably - isn’t.

The political situation in Bangladesh is fast changing and so months down the line, when everything comes out in the wash, the decision on Saturday by Khaleda Zia to reject the invitation by the prime-minister for dinner at her official residence, and to continue with the hartal, may of course not seem that relevant.

At the large rally on Friday, Khaleda Zia announced that there would be a three day hartal from Sunday onwards unless the prime-minister initiated dialogue to solve the political stalemate around the nature of the election time government.

This seemed a clever move - suggesting that the BNP wanted to find a solution through diplomacy. There was the stick of the hartal, for sure, but one which could easily be averted by a phone call from the Prime Minister.

BNP was on the moral high ground.

And so on Saturday, the prime-minister decided to do what apparently Zia had wanted her to do - phone her up and start the process of dialogue by inviting the opposition leader to a dinner at her official residence on Monday.

You might expect that the BNP would see this as a victory – their demand had forced the prime minister to make a phone call. This might not seem much, but this must be just about the first demand made by the BNP in the last five years which the government has actually accepted, and immediately at that.

However, Bangladesh politicians have reversed clausevitz’s famous aphorism; for them, or for many of them, politics in this country is the continuation of war by other means.

The BNP could not simply just accept the prime minister’s offer - they had to give her and the Awami League a bloody nose first.

For them, this ultimately was what the three day hartal was all about; trying to show the Awami League that the ruling party no longer had control of ‘the streets’ and could not necessarily depend on the law enforcement agencies.

Attacks on Awami Leaguers and their supporters are an intrinsic part of this hartal – to send a message to the ruling party that their time is up; that the opposition is organizationally strong, and can muster people to take on the government if the time was necessary.

And only when this message has been given, would the BNP then sit down for a dialogue – as only then, so their logic went, might the government actually take its demands seriously.

So when faced with the offer of dinner what did Zia do? She refused the dinner until the 60 hour hartal had finished.

Now, the country is back to square one - there has to be another phone call, another offer, and quite reasonably the Awami League prime minister may well question why she should go through another phone call when the opposition leader has failed to keep the terms of her previous public commitment.

Losing the moral high ground is one thing, but how will this affect the BNP’s strategic advantage

For that is what the BNP has at the moment.

The polls universally show that the BNP’s demand for a caretaker government is popular throughout the country even amongst AL supporters, and these same polls also show, with the BNP ten percentage points ahead of the AL, that the opposition party has the most to gain from free and fair elections and the ruling party most to lose.

In addition Western diplomats – as well as apparently those from China - stand much closer to the BNP’s position which is that there should be a neutral interim government, than the position of the AL which is that elections should take place under a party government.

These diplomats also accept that the BNP is right to question whether free and fair elections can take place without, at the very least Hasina standing down from the head of any election-time government – and so for them, it is Hasina who has to move towards the BNP position.

What this all means that is that - unless of course the Awami League comes out with a reasonable offer which the main opposition party rejects - these countries are highly unlikely to send election observers to any election in which the BNP does not participate, and will not recognize the result of any Awami League victory.

So, the BNP has the support of the majority of Bangladeshis as well as that of the international community in seeking concessions from the Awami League government. It is on the right side of this particular argument, and assuming that it is actually willing to negotiate with the ruling party, it will either win the concessions or, if it doesn’t, it will win the support of the international community if the AL tries to conduct the election alone.

This is a strong position to be in. Clearly there remain uncertainties - the role of India, for example, as a counter to the western countries. But nonetheless, the  BNP is well placed.

But this can so easily be lost.

Violence, strategically instigated by the opposition, will result in it losing support from the international community who will increasingly listen to the siren voices of the Awami League that are tirelessly telling diplomats that the BNP/Jamaat are a dangerous political alternative.

Whilst arguments about the nature of the next BNP government are of course separate from those about an election time government, they will inevitably impact upon how willing the diplomatic community would be in the future to question the legitimacy of elections under an Awami League government in which the BNP does not participate.

In addition, hartals and violence will not help the BNP sustain its popularity in the country.

Hartals are very unpopular; in a January 2013 Nielsen/Democracy International poll, over 90 percent of people viewed them as ‘bad.’ And violence perpetrated by the BNP/Jamaat will only tend to feed into the Awami League’s rhetoric of what people have to fear from the opposition winning the election.

Of course in the Bangladesh political activist’s mindset – where politics is just another form of war – there is a belief that people will only support the party if it is seen as a victor. They do not subscribe to the view that violence will necessary make them unpopular - giving the govt a bit a beating in their eyes only adds to their popularity.

If the BNP do allow themselves to be seduced by these arguments, they will however see their strategic advantage soon disappearing.

And that is not good for those who want to see a free and fair elections under some kind of government acceptable to both parties.

The BNP should put all their effort into dialogue and forcing, through legitimate political action, a change in the AL’s position on the election time government.

Hartals and political violence are a dead end – and only add to the risk of the possibility of the army stepping in.

And if that were to happen all bets are off as to which party will come out better the other end.

More Bangladesh polls results: religion, NGOs, hartals, corruption ...

Last week New Age newspapers published results of a series of opinion polls undertaken by AC Nielsen/Democracy International focusing on the level of political support held by the different political parties, and voters’ views on an election caretaker government, the war crimes trials and the Shahbagh movement. These can all be seen here

However, in the polls undertaken since June 2012 many other questions were asked of voters and below are findings which are likely to be of additional interest – though it should be remembered that that some answers were given over a year ago, and opinions may well have changed.

This is the first time these results - from polls in June 2012, Jan 2013, Mar 2013 and July 2013 - have been published.

All the polls involved face-to-face interviews with between 2,400 to 2,500 randomly selected people throughout Bangladesh. Democracy International says that it is confident that ‘statistically, the views of those surveyed accurately represent the opinions of all Bangladeshi voters with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 per cent.’

Particularly interesting results:
- lack of confidence in NGOs;
- significance of religion;
- Awami League government does well in comparison with last Bangladesh Nationalist Party government in most policy areas;
- 'Corruption' is seen as biggest weakness of both main parties;
- 'history' of party, important to why people vote for AL;
- retirement of AL and BNP's 'founding families' from politics would weaken parties;
- 'hartals' very unpopular;
- control of prices seen as most important priority for new government;
- Overwhelming number of people want dialogue between main political parties.

June 2012 poll 

1. Confidence in institutions: When voters were asked to state whether they had confidence in different institutions, the three in which voters had the least confidence were the ‘police’ (50 percent had no confidence), the ‘political parties’ (43 percent) and NGOs (41 percent). The institution in which voters had the most confidence was ‘the military’ with only 5 percent saying that they had no confidence in it.

2. Religion: The response to two questions indicated the significance of religion in Bangladesh politics. A small majority of people (53 to 47 percent) either disagreed or strongly disagreed with the proposition that ‘religion and politics are two different things’ and 59 percent agreed/strongly agreed that it would be a good thing ‘if all political parties in Bangladesh is based on religion.’

3. BNP/AL policy comparison: Voters were asked to compare the current Awami league government with that of the 2001-6 Bangladesh Nationalist Party government in a number of areas. In ‘education and health care’, 82 percent thought that the current AL government was either successful or very successful, compared to 54 percent who thought the same of the previous BNP government; in ‘reducing poverty’, 36 percent thought the AL had been successful/very successful compared to 32 percent for the BNP period; and both parties get the same ratings, 40 percent, in relation to dealing with law and order. Only in relation to the price of goods does the BNP have a better rating than the AL (41 percent thinking that the BNP had been successful/very successful compared to 30 percent for the AL government). The caretaker government only rated well on the issue of law and order, where 71 percent thought it was successful.

4. Party shortcomings: When voters were asked what was the shortcomings/weakness of the AL and the BNP, the issue that was mentioned the most for both parties was ‘corruption’ - with the same percentage of voters, 35 percent mentioning it as a shortcoming for each party.

5. Why support parties: When asked what were the reasons ‘why some people like or support’ the Al, 46 percent of voters stated it was the party’s ‘leaders’ and 37 percent mentioned it was the party’s ‘history’ - higher levels than the percentage of voters who gave the same reasons about the BNP (31 percent and 15 percent, respectively.)

6. Party/candidate: Just over half of the voters questioned, 52 percent, said that when they vote, they decide solely on the basis of ‘the qualities of an individual candidate’. 18 percent said that they only considered the political party, and 26 percent stating that they consider ‘both’.

7. Founding families: The same percentage of voters, 55 percent and 6 percent respectively thought that both the BNP and AL would be ‘much weakened’ or would ‘disappear’ if ‘their founding families were to retire from politics. Many more people however thought that the Jatiya party would be affected if General Ershad and his family retired from politics with as many as 26 percent of voters thinking that the party would disappear ‘entirely’ (over and above the 52 percent who thought that the party would be weakened by their retirement).

January 2013 poll
8. Hartals: Voters were very hostile to both ‘hartals’ and ‘barricades’ organized by political parties – with over 90 percent viewing them as ‘bad.’ 65 percent even thought ‘criticising opponents in the media’ was ‘bad’. The kinds of political activities that were popular were rallies, public gatherings, TV debate and use of posters.

9. New election Priority: The issue that by far the most number of voters stated should be ‘given priority’ by the next elected government was ‘control of prices’ with 94 percent of voters thinking it a priority. In a question (where voters were allowed to provide more than one answer) 58 percent also thought that ‘improving law and order’, and 40 percent ‘dealing with corruption’ and ‘increasing jobs’, should be priorities.

March 2013
10. Media: Television is by far the most important medium through which people receive their news. When voters were asked ‘which medium do you receive the most reliable news’, 75 percent said ‘television’, with only 6 percent stating ‘newspapers’. 25 percent said ‘words of mouth’ with ero no-one stating the ‘internet’.

11. When asked which TV stations they watched, 37 percent said they watched BTV, 13 percent ATN Bangla, 11 percent Channel One, 7 percent Somoy TV and NTV, and 4 percent said ETV and ATN news.

12. In terms of those people who did read newspapers, 32 percent stated they read Prothom Ali, 27 percent Bangladesh Protidin, 15/16 percent said Amar Desh, Jugantor and Ittefaq, 8-10 percent Jonokhonto, Noyo Niganto, Kaler Khonto and Samakol.

July 2013
13. Dialogue: When voters were asked, ‘Do you believe that the government and opposition parties should get involved in a constructive dialogue soon,’ 93 percent agreed. And when additionally asked whether or not the ‘international community can facilitate dialogue’, 43 percent agreed and 33 percent disagreed.

(This work of DI is part of the Democratic Participation and Reform programme, which is funded by the American and British aid bodies, USAID and UKAID)