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| Middle East |
| Yasser's poll numbers are off |
| 2002-05-21 |
| Yasser Arafat's popularity has slipped as dissatisfaction with his corruption-ridden regime grows, but no other Palestinian can muster enough support to pose a serious challenge to the Palestinian leader, according an opinion poll published Tuesday. Hmmm... That's about what we guessed. Got any firm numbers to back it up? The survey also indicated that there is overwhelming support among Palestinians for reforms - including firing corrupt Cabinet ministers, streamlining rival security services into one force and holding elections within the coming months. Yup. No suprise there, either. Now, about those numbers... The survey was conducted May 15-18 by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, an independent think tank, with 1,317 adults interviewed face-to-face. It had a margin of error of 3 percentage points. According to the poll, Arafat has the support of 35 percent of Palestinians, compared to 46 percent in July 2000, before the outbreak of fighting with Israel, and 36 percent in December 2001. That's lower then we even expected. In fact, the July 2001 numbers are lower than we expected. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |