Gallup: Less than 50 percent of Iranians trust their government
Results from the latest Gallup Institute poll show that amid an economic crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, which has turned Iran into one of the disease’s major outbreak centers, public trust in the country’s government has fallen below fifty percent.
A review of Gallup’s past polls indicates that the Iranian people have never been this distrustful of the Islamic Republic’s governance throughout these years.
According to a report published on the website of this international institution, at least four out of every ten Iranian citizens believe that their living standards and economic conditions have declined compared to the past and are getting worse day by day.
Meanwhile, only six percent of Iranians approve of the policies of the United States government.
Gallup’s latest global poll was conducted in August 2020, based on which only 47 percent of Iranians stated that they trust their government.
This is while fifty percent of Iranians say they have lost their confidence in the government.
The trend of this institution’s polls over the past decade shows that since 2016, coinciding with Donald Trump’s administration taking office and America’s withdrawal from the nuclear agreement known as the JCPOA, which led to heavy sanctions against Tehran, Iranian public trust in their government has been declining.
According to Gallup, prior to that, between 2012 and 2016, approximately seven out of every ten Iranians trusted their government.
On the other hand, the Gallup report states that despite a dramatic decline in Iranians’ trust in their government, public opinion regarding U.S. leadership has changed even more dramatically. In 2017, nineteen percent of Iranians said they approved of the performance of U.S. leaders, while 42 percent opposed and 38 percent said they had no opinion on the matter.
In 2018, the rate of “dissatisfaction” and Iranian opposition to U.S. leaders’ policies reached 85 percent. The number of opponents increased this time with the participation of individuals who had not expressed their opinion in the previous poll.
This change shows that many Iranians did not have a specific stance toward Donald Trump’s administration in its first year in office until America abandoned the nuclear agreement, after which a notable shift occurred in Iranians’ views regarding U.S. leaders’ positions.
Comparing poll results in these years clearly demonstrates how the “maximum pressure” strategy and the return of heavy sanctions against Iran’s government in 2018 affected Iranians’ optimism regarding an improvement in the country’s economic conditions.
Before that, Hassan Rouhani’s government had sought to lift Iran’s isolation and increase its participation in the global economy.
Donald Trump said on Friday, November 24, that over the past three years his administration’s approach has caused “Iran to transform from a wealthy country to a poor one” and the country’s gross domestic product has declined by 27 percent.
The U.S. president had previously stated that the maximum pressure strategy against Iran has severely damaged the country’s economy, and for this reason, as soon as he wins the November 3 election, Iran will be the first country to contact him to reach an agreement.
Source: Radio Farda
