We’re less than four weeks away from the elections, and al-Akhbar has done us a service by aggregating the predictions of four prominent Lebanese pollsters: Jawad Adra, Abdo Saad, Rabih al-Hibr, and Kamal Feghali. Here’s a summary of the article.
All four experts agree that the following districts are sewn up. For the majority: Akkar, Miniyyeh/Diniyyeh, Bsharreh, Shouf, Aley (4/5 seats), Beirut III, Beirut II (2/2 seats). For the opposition: Aley (1/5 seats), Beirut II (2/2 seats), Baalbek, Jezzine, Marjeyoun, Bint Jbeil, Nabatiyeh, Sour, al-Zahrani, Jbeil.
In total, therefore, the majority has 36 guaranteed seats while the opposition has 37 guaranteed seats.
There are four districts that are almost sewn up: Tripoli, Zgharta, Baabda, and Kisrawan. Factoring these seats with their margins of error into the above totals yields the following “virtually guaranteed” minimum ranges:
Majority =42-44; opposition = 48-51.
The experts are divided on the remaining seven districts (Koura, Metn, Beirut I, Saida, Batroun, West Bekaa, and Zahle). Those of you who are interested in the nitty gritty of electoral calculations and get off on pretending to be John King (like I do) should read the article. Those of you who have a life can just read my calculation below, which is the sum of the guaranteed base figures and the high/low predictions for each of the swing districts.
Majority best case scenario: 71 seats; worst case scenario: 48
Opposition best case scenario: 80 seats; worst case scenario: 57
As you can see, the opposition’s over/under is nine points better than the majority’s, which may be why many people are predicting a slim win for Aoun-Hizbullah-Berri.
Back to you, Wolf…
Qifa Nabki 
You really need the magic board! Any chance of procuring it before the elections?
Posted by Jad Aoun | May 12, 2009, 6:26 amHere is my prediction! The winner is and always will be ………….. Sectarianism!
Some slogans to entice people to vote:
” Vote for your favourite Sectarian”
” Vote Lebanese sectarianism, its better than Syria’s one party vote”
” Vote for the Future, Vote Sectarianism”
” Vote for a Free and independent Lebanon: Vote Sectarianism ”
” Vote for the Sanctity of the Resistance: Vote Sectarianism”
” Vote for the Lebanese treasury to be robbed: Vote Sectarianism ”
“Vote for the stupidity that is Lebanon: Vote sectarianism”
” Vote for Saudi, Iranian, Syrian, American and who ever is stupid enough to give us CASH: Vote sectarianism”
There you have it QN, it was not too hard to predict the winner, simple really if you correlated all past election results, and using a very sectarian cross reference of Lebanese as your focus group, and logged the findings into SPSS using con joint analysis- You will have a clear winner no need for expensive market analysts and researcher to be employed!
Posted by Enlightened | May 12, 2009, 8:01 amI like your comments, Enlightened. The slogans would make a great poster campaign.
General question – how reliable/independent do you think these pollsters are?
Posted by WeeBeastie | May 12, 2009, 12:46 pmWeeBeastie, Abdo Saad is thought to be rather pro-FPM. Jawad Adra is about as independent as you can get (he does Zogby’s polling here). I’m not sure about the others.
Posted by Qifa Nabki | May 12, 2009, 12:49 pmWhere can I find a map for the geographically challenged, ideally depicting colour coded electoral districts with links to the candidates?
Posted by K | May 12, 2009, 1:31 pmThanks. Some people (Michael Young, Tony Badran) say that Abdo Saad is pro-Hizb (indeed “a card-carrying member”, according to Tony Badran; perhaps he has been through his pockets?). But it’s not clear to me if this is really based on anything known about his own opinions, or if it has more to do with his daughter being a Hizbollah expert. Plus the fact that he did a controversial poll after the 2006 war in which most respondents said they supported the “resistance” against “Israeli aggression”.
Posted by WeeBeastie | May 12, 2009, 1:58 pmK,
This should serve your purposes.
http://www.nowlebanon.com/elections.aspx
Posted by Qifa Nabki | May 12, 2009, 3:30 pmWee:
QN answered your question, personally I would take with a great deal of salt the outcome of any polling done.
Let me put my marketing research hat back on from my marketing days, most reliable polling has a error factor of no more than 2% to be considered “reliable” when you do your sampling.
But here is a problem when you look at the Lebanese as a sample “They are remarkably fracticious” and trying to get sample polling done from a small sample size that is “representative” of the population would be a almost impossible task, hence QN’s worst case /best case scenario of over under being nine points would be a plausible outcome for any sane market research study.
QN: ” You didn’t like my slogans”?
Posted by Enlightened | May 13, 2009, 4:05 amEnlightened!
Loved them. LMAO. I’ve lost track of the different threads and so forgot to come over here and comment on them.
The last one is my favorite.
Posted by Qifa Nabki | May 13, 2009, 6:53 am“Vote for the stupidity that is Lebanon: Vote sectarianism”
This has to be the best one!
Posted by V | May 13, 2009, 7:06 am