Will the voting intentions reflect The choices that will be made on October 23rd?

A new survey shows major Islamist party Ennahda leading among intended voters, with the two most popular center-left parties, the Progressive Democratic Party (PDP) and Ettakatol, approximately tied for second.

The Market Research firm Sigma Conseil published the poll on September 10th. It surveyed 2,513 Tunisians, all older than 18, living in Tunisia, and split by sex, age, socioeconomic status, instruction level, and place of residence.

Will surveyed voting intentions reflect the choices that will be made on October 23rd?

All the electoral districts are represented in this poll. The poll was conducted using the computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) method.

The poll concerns the intention to vote for either political parties or independent lists, and the opinion concerning the referendum which will limit the duration of the Constituent Assembly.

In terms of voter intentions, Ennahdha leads at 22.8%, followed by the PDP with 10.9% and Ettakattol 9.2%.

The Congress for the Republic Party (CPR) increased its percentage of vote intention from 2% in August to 4.5% and is actually the 4th ranked party. It is followed by The Initiative Party and Al Watan, who both got 3.1% of the vote intention.

The UPL party has 1.7% of the vote intentions. The Ettajdid is the 8th party with 1.3%. The 9th and 10th parties are the Tunisian Workers’ Communist Party PCOT and Afek Tounes, who respectively earned 0.8% and 0%7% of voter intention.

The surveyed population of 2,513 proposed 30 lists, including parties’ and independents’ lists, while there are more than a hundred. And the parties which were created and known before the January 14th revolution have accumulated 95% of known intended votes.

Only 60% of the interviewed population stated a party preference. Among the 40% who did not give their opinion, 32.1% don’t know for whom to vote, 4.4% won’t vote, and 3.5% did not want to answer.

If we convert the percentage of vote intention to the number of seats in the constituent assembly, ignoring those who don’t know for whom to vote, using the method of the biggest remainder, Ennahdha would get 80 seats among 199 in Tunisia (40.2%), PDP 40 (20.1%), Ettakattol 30 (15.1%),  CPR 16 (8.2%), The Initiative 10 (5.0%), UPL 8 (4.1%), Ettajdid 6 (3.0%), El Watan 3 (1.4%), Afek Tounes 3 (1.3%), PCOT 3 (1.1%), and Hachemi Hamdi, an independent candidate, would get a seat in Central West Tunisia as one seat represents 0.5% of the vote intention.

The survey population was also asked if it is for or against a referendum which will determine the duration of the Constituent Assembly. 57% are in favor of the referendum, 18.6% are against and 24.3% do not know.

Almost 60% of the potential voters for Ennahdha Party are for the referendum, and 70% of PDP and Ettakatol Party suppor the referendum as well.

Source: Businessnews, Al Maghreb