Opinion polls may not reflect the weight of people's real voting intentions, writes Reem Leila Two days before voters begin to choose a president and an Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies (ACPSS) poll places Amr Moussa and Ahmed Shafik as the frontrunners. In the eighth ACPSS opinion poll, conducted on 21 May, Moussa remains ahead of his rivals, though his approval rating has fallen from the 40 per cent recorded a week earlier to 31.7 per cent. Shafik, who was former president Hosni Mubarak's minister of civil aviation and his last prime minister, maintained second place in the race with 22.6 per cent. Shafik's support increased by 2.7 per cent from last week's poll. Meanwhile, Muslim Brotherhood presidential candidate Mohamed Mursi has passed Abdel-Moneim Abul-Fotouh. Mursi is in third place with 14.8 per cent of the vote while Abul-Fotouh dropped to fourth with 14.6 per cent. Mursi leads Abul-Fotouh by only 0.2 per cent. Last week's poll indicated that Mursi's supporters totalled 9.4 per cent, meaning Mursi's followers have been increasing 0.6 per cent a day. According to the ACPSS poll, Mursi has been stressing the importance of implementing Islamic principles, which might have helped him get past Abul-Fotouh who is a former Muslim Brotherhood member. Hamdeen Sabahi was ranked fifth among potential presidents after receiving the support of 11.7 per cent of projected votes. Sabahi's fan base increased by 4.7 per cent due perhaps to the recent number of times he has appeared on TV. Mohamed Selim El-Awwa's support dropped from 5.7 to 2.3 per cent. Khaled Ali languished on 1.1 per cent, trailed by Abul-Ezz El-Hariri on 0.6 per cent. The ACPSS poll recorded undecided voters at 14.4 per cent. Almost 87 per cent of respondents said they planned to cast a ballot. A Cabinet Information and Decision Support Centre (IDSC) telephone poll conducted in mid-May had estimated the number of undecided voters at 45 per cent. According to the ACPSS survey, the run-off will most likely pit Moussa and Mursi. If popularity for Moussa wanes, Shafik will replace Moussa in a run-off against Mursi. Results from expatriate Egyptians who have already cast their votes have diverged markedly from opinion poll results. Mursi emerged in the lead, followed by Abul-Fotouh and Sabahi, with both Moussa and Shafik tailing behind. Ain Shams University professor of sociology Ali Leila warns against taking the results of opinion polls at face value. "These polls can mislead undecided voters," he says, "falsely portraying some candidates as potential winners and others as sure fire losers." Ahmed Nagui Qamha, who has worked on eight of ACPSS's weekly polls, disagrees. Respondents, he says, are carefully chosen to reflect the weight in wider society of their socio-economic groups, and questions are formulated according to the latest methodology. ACPSS, he adds, is completely neutral, and the polls, which cost on average LE80,000 per week, are funded by Al-Ahram's advertising agency. He dismisses suggestions that the expatriate vote has exposed opinion polls as being inaccurate. Qamha argued that results of presidential elections abroad are not a good indicator of the final results because the number of expat Egyptians does not exceed eight million people. "Eight million against 50.4 million eligible voters in Egypt cannot create a dramatic effect in the election results," says Qamha. "Expats in Gulf countries are hardly representative of Egyptian society. They are immune to the economic problems faced by Egyptians at home, leading comfortable lives paid for by large salaries. They are not a demographic that will decide who is the next president of Egypt," says Qamha. Chaart source: ACPSS
