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Monday 11 May 2009

Pollsters Predict Lebanese Election Results

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Posted by Qifa Nabki under Elections, Lebanon Tags:
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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…

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