U.S. Survey: Rouhani’s Popularity Plunges

Date: 25 January 2017 - 20:44

News ID: ۳۶۰۳۲

TEHRAN (Dispatches) -- President Hassan Rouhani is losing some public support ahead of a May election, according to a new opinion poll, potentially signaling a shift toward his opponents following the country’s nuclear deal.
The survey results paint a picture of an Iranian public wary of the trust Rouhani placed in the U.S. and other world powers when his administration negotiated the deal, and skeptical about the economic benefits they thought it would bring.
Conducted in December for the University of Maryland, the survey is based on telephone interviews with 1,000 Iranians and provides a gauge of public opinion, the
Some 69% of Iranians surveyed said they viewed Rouhani either very favorably or somewhat favorably. That represents a significant decline from the roughly 82% who saw him very favorably or somewhat favorably in a June poll from the university. The share of respondents who view him very favorably has fallen steadily from 61% in August 2015 to 28% in the new poll.
"Rouhani’s popularity is taking a hit primarily because he is perceived to have failed to deliver on his campaign promises,” said Amir Farmanesh, the president and chief executive of Toronto-based IranPoll.com, which conducted the survey on the school’s behalf.
About 51% said the country’s economic conditions were worsening, up from 43% in June. Almost three-quarters of the Iranians surveyed said the deal hadn’t improved people’s living conditions.
Yet Rouhani has maintained considerable popularity in part because he has successfully cast himself in a different mold from his predecessor, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
"People are emotional,” said Ali Pakzad, the editor in chief of Asr Eqtesad, an economic newspaper. "They remember the experience of 40%-plus inflation and the economic crisis of 2009 that dragged into 2013. They are critical of Mr. Rouhani, but if they see any approach similar to Ahmadinejad’s, they will turn back on it.”
IranPoll is a subsidiary of People Analytics, which specializes in polling in countries where it is challenging to operate. IranPoll has conducted polls of Iranians since 2006.
The latest poll has a margin of error of 3.2%.
"The economy is perceived as getting worse,” Farmanesh said. "The (nuclear deal) is perceived to not be delivering the promised benefits. The cherished nuclear program is perceived to have been gutted, and there have been little perceived gains on civil liberties.”
Yet the practical effects of Rouhani’s apparent fall in popularity remain difficult to gauge.
Rouhani won the presidency in 2013 on a platform of improving economic fortunes by opening the country to the world. Around the time Rouhani took office, the value of Iran’s currency had fallen sharply, and inflation had been skyrocketing at above a 40% annual clip.
Rouhani’s aims coalesced in the nuclear deal struck with the U.S. and five other world powers in 2015, under which Tehran agreed to place curbs on its nuclear program in exchange for relief from sanctions that has hardly realized.
Inflation has been tamed under Rouhani and economic growth prospects are reasonably strong—the economy is expected to expand by 4.1% this year, according to the International Monetary Fund.
But Iranians said in the poll that they haven’t seen much of an economic improvement since the deal took effect last January.
Benefits stemming from the deal could prove even more elusive under new U.S. President Donald Trump, who vowed during his campaign to prioritize dismantling the deal, which had been a foreign-policy cornerstone for the Obama administration but was opposed by many Republican lawmakers.
In another setback for Rouhani, one of his most vocal political supporters, former president Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, passed away of a heart attack this month.
Muhammad Reza Aref, a parliament member and leading ally of Rouhani, said Tuesday that Ayatollah Rafsanjani’s absence was a challenge, but the president’s priority should be securing a high turnout in May.