Recently, information has been circulated on social media claiming that the international media outlet Al Jazeera conducted a secret survey to gauge the popularity of political parties for Bangladesh’s 13th national parliamentary election. Posts with this claim state that 70 million people participated in the said secret survey. The posts also claim that, according to the survey data, the Awami League received the highest number of votes. The alleged results of that survey are:
- Awami League – 52% support, voters stated they will receive 35.4 million votes.
- Jamaat-e-Islami – 20% support, stated by 15.4 million voters.
- BNP – 14% support, supported by 10.1 million voters.
- NCP – 5% support, voted by 3.6 million voters.
- Islami Andolon – 3% support, 2.1 million voters gave this verdict.
- Jatiya Party – 2% support, supported by 1.4 million voters.
The posts also state that voters do not know the names of the remaining parties.
See videos containing such information circulated on YouTube here (Archive) and here (Archive).
See such posts circulated on Facebook here (Archive) and here (Archive).
See such posts circulated on Instagram here (Archive) and here (Archive).
Fact-check
The Rumor Scanner team’s investigation found that Al Jazeera has not conducted any survey to gauge the popularity of political parties in Bangladesh regarding the 13th national parliamentary election. In reality, the claim has been circulated using Al Jazeera’s name and is entirely baseless.
An investigation into the claim involved reviewing Al Jazeera’s website and conducting searches with relevant keywords to verify the information. However, no information about such a survey was found on Al Jazeera’s website. Additionally, no such information was found on Al Jazeera’s Facebook page.
Al Jazeera journalist Zulkarnain Saer Sami usually shares any reports published by the media outlet on Bangladesh issues on his personal Facebook profile. He regularly shares his opinions on various important issues as well as a lot of information on his profile. However, a review of Zulkarnain Saer’s Facebook account also found no information about any such secret survey by Al Jazeera or any related post from him.
Furthermore, no such information was found in any domestic media outlets.
Therefore, the information circulated on the internet claiming that the international media outlet Al Jazeera conducted a secret survey on Bangladesh’s upcoming 13th national parliamentary election and that the Awami League received the highest number of votes is completely false.
