Whom would you vote for if election is held now

Thirty-four per cent people are not certain whom they would vote for if the parliamentary election is held now while 11 per cent said they would vote for any new party backed by students.

This was found in a field data collection of a public opinion poll.

The poll also found a marked difference in results between the data sets collected through online and offline surveys.

The online data collection showed 35 per cent of people want to vote for any political party backed by students, 11 per cent are still uncertain whom they vote for.

Development research and project management firm Innovision Consulting Bangladesh conducted these polls. The polls were conducted on a micro-poling platform Bangladesh Speaks (bangladeshspeaks.com) online and on the field between 29 August and 8 September.

Innovision Consulting analysed the data of 5,115 samples from 50 districts for the field-level poll and 3,581 samples from 64 districts for the online poll.

Md. Rubaiyath Sarwar, managing director of Innovision Consulting, unveiled the poll findings at an event at a hotel in Dhaka on Tuesday.

He said major political parties fall behind polls, in particular, there is a clear tendency to refuse the mainstream political parties among participants of the online poll.

Revealing the poll results, Rubaiyath Sarwar said field data show 21 per cent of people support the Bangladesh Nationalist  Party (BNP), followed by Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami  (14 per cent), while only 5 per cent said they would vote for the Awami League.

A maximum of 34 per cent of people said they are still uncertain whom they would vote for.

On the other hand, the online poll showed 35 per cent of people want to vote for any political party backed by students while 25 per cent said they want to vote for Jamaat and 10 per cent want to vote for Awami League and BNP each.

Demographic analysis of the field data showed that 30 per cent of Generation Z (born between 1997 and 2012) are not certain whom they would vote for, while the online poll found that 37 per cent of Gen Z said they would choose any student-backed party.

One-third of age, gender and profession-based respondents, who are from lower income brackets and not active online, are still uncertain about whom they would choose.

According to field data, BNP maintains the biggest support among farmers, workers and businesspersons, but BNP and Jamaat have more or less similar support among students, and private service holders.

Jamaat-e-Islami also leads among students, unemployed and private job holders.

Rushad Faridi, professor of economics at Dhaka University, Fahim Mashroor, chief executive of bdjobds, were present at the programme.