Questionable Afghanistan public opinion poll

ABC news has released a public opinion poll from Afghanistan that claims to be a nation-wide random sample. I am extremely suspicious of the results. In the first place, how does one conduct a nation-wide random sample in Afghanistan when the Taliban has control over large parts of the country? Second, many of the findings are hard to believe:

• About 70% think Afghanistan in going in the right direction.
• Hamid Karzai’s approval rating is about 70%, even though he got less than 50% of the vote in the first round of last August’s election and was found guilty of massive vote rigging.
• 75% are satisfied with the outcome of the election, even though 60% believe there was fraud.

That 70% think the country is going in the right direction and approve of Karzai is hard to believe. The news from Afghanistan strengthens my suspicion:

Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s second attempt to form a cabinet has raised concerns of a return to patronage politics with a batch of largely unknown figures who appear to come with useful connections.

Analysts said many of the new names submitted Saturday for parliament’s approval — to replace 17 nominees rejected by lawmakers earlier this month — have little or no experience in government, raising the risk of failure.

Karzai is battling to form a functioning government and end a political crisis in the war-ravaged nation that has dragged on since he was returned to power in a fraud-tainted presidential election in August.

It’s hard to accept that 70% of Afghans approve of Karzai and think the country s going in the right direction if “Karzai is battling to form a functioning government and end a political crisis in the war-ravaged nation.”

The responses about the election also are hard to accept. 75% of the respondents claim to be happy with the outcome of the election. Karzai probably got about 50% of the vote in the first round of the elections. If 75% of the people are happy with the election outcome, this means that a large part of the 50% of Afghans who did not vote for Karzai and/or a large part of those who did not vote are happy with the election outcome, even though most people think he rigged the election. Certainly this is plausible, but I am suspicious.