Foreign Policy Blogs

Election Preferences on the Arab Street

Zogby International and the University of Maryland's Shibley Telhami conducted a poll last month of 6 Arab publics: Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.

Not surprisingly, the poll reveals negative attitudes toward the US. The pollsters also took this opportunity to gauge these publics’ opinion on the US Presidential election.

Reuters reports on these findings related to Arab opinion on the US Presidential election:

“Looking ahead to the next U.S. president, 18 percent of respondents believed Democratic contender Barack Obama had the best chance of advancing peace in the Middle East followed by 13 percent who saw Hillary Clinton as their best hope.

Only 4 percent chose Arizona Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for this November's U.S. presidential election. The remainder either U.S. policy would stay the same whoever won or they were not following election.

One in three respondents believed U.S. policy would remain the same, no matter who won the U.S. election and 20 percent said they were not following the U.S. election anyway.”

 

Author

Melinda Brouwer

Melinda Brower holds a Masters degree in Global Politics from the London School of Economics and Political Science. She received her bachelor's degree in Political Science and Spanish at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She received a graduate diploma in International Relations from the University of Chile during her tenure as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar. She has worked on Capitol Hill, at the State Department, for Foreign Policy magazine and the American Academy of Diplomacy. She presently works for an internationally focused non-profit research organization in Washington, DC.