"In the six months leading up to the elections, the party faithful had worked tirelessly with their activist base to ensure that everyone - including Fatah and Hamas supporters - remained in the dark about their forthcoming victory. Zahar revealed how Hamas voters had been instructed to react if asked about their voting preference. They were advised to avoid the question if possible but, if pressed, they were told to give a misleading response. In this way, the pollsters were tricked months ahead of the election into predicting that Fatah would once again form the next government."
On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 7:23 AM, Marv Gandall <marvgandall at videotron.ca> wrote:
> In response to your challenge, however, I decided to see how accurately the polls gauged Hamas' popularity prior to its smashing victory in the January 2006 Palestinian legislative election. WWhat I found is that less than two months prior to the election, the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research had Fatah leading Hamas by 50-32, and though a subsequent PCPSR poll and one by another agency showed the gap closing, each continued to forecast a comfortable Fatah victory.
>
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_legislative_election,_2006)
>
> I suspect if Fatah and its US and European backers could have anticipated the outcome, they would have found a pretext to put the historic 2006 election on ice. They certainly don't appear to place as much store as you do in current polls which similarly purport to show Fatah as the people's choice.
-- "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað."