Parent makes the point glibly, but it is very serious.
I have considerable experience talking to people from one of the top places mentioned and the freedom to answer a survey is far from guaranteed.
To give you an idea of the scale of this (these are real, actual and exact numbers):
In that country (which I'll name as Northern East Soumania, a small autonomous island belonging to an African republic, or a similar African country) the President recently put in a bid to be able to stay President for life. This required constitutional changes, which were passed by the annual sitting of parliament.
The vote on this bid was 2,859 votes supporting lifting the term limit, 2 votes against lifting the term limit and 4 abstaining.
Can you imagine that? Can you imagine an American president at the end of their second term wanting to lift the term limit congressionally and out of 535 members of congress (435 in the house of representatives and 100 in the senate) 530 voting to remove the term limits, 2 voting against and 4 abstaining? (Actually since the basis is
535 instead of 2,859, I should divide the against and abstaining voted by 5.5)
I would personally not be surprised if the 2 "against" votes had serious consequences for their personal life, I mean things like not being able to travel and so forth. (Despite being members of parliament in that country.)
If I were a member of that country, I probably wouldn't feel free to say in a survey that the country was not headed in the right direction.
I have considerable experience talking to people from one of the top places mentioned and the freedom to answer a survey is far from guaranteed.
To give you an idea of the scale of this (these are real, actual and exact numbers):
In that country (which I'll name as Northern East Soumania, a small autonomous island belonging to an African republic, or a similar African country) the President recently put in a bid to be able to stay President for life. This required constitutional changes, which were passed by the annual sitting of parliament.
The vote on this bid was 2,859 votes supporting lifting the term limit, 2 votes against lifting the term limit and 4 abstaining.
Can you imagine that? Can you imagine an American president at the end of their second term wanting to lift the term limit congressionally and out of 535 members of congress (435 in the house of representatives and 100 in the senate) 530 voting to remove the term limits, 2 voting against and 4 abstaining? (Actually since the basis is 535 instead of 2,859, I should divide the against and abstaining voted by 5.5)
I would personally not be surprised if the 2 "against" votes had serious consequences for their personal life, I mean things like not being able to travel and so forth. (Despite being members of parliament in that country.)
If I were a member of that country, I probably wouldn't feel free to say in a survey that the country was not headed in the right direction.