Abhisit Vejjajiva, pushpolls, Thai government, Thaksin

The Bangkok Post:

The popularity of the Abhisit Vejjajiva government has soared after its diplomatic protest against Phnom Penh's appointment of convicted Thaksin Shinawatra as an economic adviser, an opinion poll has found.

The Nation:

The popularity rating of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has tripled after his decisive action to downgrade the diplomatic ties with Cambodia, Abac Poll said in a survey released on Friday.

BP: The problem with this, as already noted on Twitter (Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5) is that the ABAC poll surveyed people between October 25-November 5 and the government only took action in downgrading relations in the afternoon of November 5. Hence, there is no basis to interpret the poll as support for the government's decision to downgrade relations. To say so is misleading at best. One wonders if any of the journalists who wrote the stories bothered to read the poll.

The result of the poll is that within six weeks the Abhisit government's popularity increased from 23% to 69% (Siam Report has translated the poll here). This is a very rapid rise. Now, over the last couple of weeks there has been tension between Cambodia and Thailand and usually when there is any sense of a crisis, people usually rally behind the government. Therefore, it is not unusual for support to increase. However, this poll borders on being a push poll. Just before asking people whether they support the Abhisit government, it asks those it surveyed:

"Are you aware that the Cambodian leader gave an interview attacking the Thai judicial system?" (การรับทราบข่าว ผู้นำประเทศกัมพูชาให้สัมภาษณ์โจมตีกระบวนการยุติธรรมภายในประเทศไทย)

BP: This asserts something as fact and is a method used in push polls to skew results. To be frank, this is annoying as it would be nice to know whether support of the government has really increased - although it was only two weeks ago that Thaksin was still ahead of Abhisit.* Unfortunately, it seems we will never know and the only thing one can see happening is that unless there is another leading question to preface the next poll, the Abhisit govenment's support will decrease. If it does, you should not compare it with this poll, but the previous poll with the Abhisit government being on 23%.

* The mistake with that poll was that it didn't ask people beforehand if they were aware whether Thaksin liked to kill baby elephants and eat them.