Jordan Times
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Majority of Jordanians
believe country is doing fine - poll
By Mahmoud Al Abed
AMMAN - A majority of Jordanians believe the country is moving in the right
direction, despite concerns about the rising cost of living, unemployment and
poverty, according to a survey.
The poll, conducted by the Jordan Centre for Social Research (JCSR), gauged
opinions on topics ranging from problems in the country and freedom of speech to
political preferences.
According to the poll, 64.8 per cent of the 1,000 respondents see the Kingdom as
generally being on the right track, while 27.7 per cent believe that the country
is going in the wrong direction.
These results represent a 6.4 per cent increase from the organisation's March
2007 poll, when 58.4 per cent were satisfied with the way the country was moving
into the future.
The study's results echo the findings of an international poll conducted by the
Pew Global Attitudes Project, which measured "national satisfaction trends" and
indicated a rise in public satisfaction over "the way things are going in their
country" - from 42 per cent in 2002 to 56 per cent in 2007.
Jordan and Morocco led the trend among the Middle East countries surveyed by
Pew.
According to the JCSR survey, Jordanians believe that the most important problem
facing the country today remains the rising cost of living, an issue that has
become a matter of increasing concern over the past two years.
Compared with unemployment and poverty, the percentage of Jordanians rating cost
of living as the country's most important problem has been generally rising -
from 38.2 per cent in July 2005 to 55.2 per cent in May 2006 and stands at 48.8
per cent today.
"One in two Jordanians feels the brunt of the rising cost of living and price
increases in general," the finding's summary said.
The rising cost of living is followed by unemployment and poverty as distant
second- and third-place concerns, at 17.6 per cent and 9.3 per cent, although
these are also recurring issues of concern for Jordanians as indicated by
previous opinion polls.
In an open-ended question, 7.3 per cent of those polled said they still think
the Palestinian issue is the most important political problem that requires the
government's immediate attention.
Turning to local politics, 41.8 per cent feel that there are no political
problems in Jordan (a significant 12.3 percentage point increase over March
2007) and 29.4 per cent are not sure or don't know.
Meanwhile, 25.4 per cent of respondents think that the freedom to publicly
criticise the government's policies and decisions is guaranteed to a large
extent, an increase of 7.7 per cent over results from March 2007, while another
33.6 per cent think that it is somewhat guaranteed, up from 28.3 per cent.
Almost one in five respondents, or 19.2 per cent, said that the freedom to
publicly criticise the government is not guaranteed at all, a significant drop
from 33.1 per cent in the March poll.
A majority (60.9 per cent) think the 2003 Elections Law, stipulating the
"one-person, one-vote" system, is the most appropriate for Jordan. This
represents an increase of 5.2 percentage points from the March 2007 poll.
Eighteen per cent support a "one-seat, one-district" system, while 8.5 per cent
expressed support for a mixed system of "party/electoral lists and district
seats" and 8.1 per cent backed a "national proportional list" system.
If parliamentary elections were held today, 41.3 per cent say they would vote
for a "Jordanian nationalist" candidate, an increase of 4.4 percentage points
over the March 2007 poll.
A total of 14.3 per cent said they would vote for a "political Islamist"
candidate, a drop of 3.9 percentage points from May 2006, while 6.9 per cent
said they would vote for an "Arab nationalist" candidate.
Around a third (30.3 per cent) indicated that they would not vote on the basis
of political ideology.
The survey involved individuals aged 18 years and above: 50 per cent men and 50
per cent women who were randomly selected from 100 locations throughout the
Kingdom. Conducted between August 18 and 23, the poll has a 2.5 per cent margin
of error.
The fieldwork for the survey, the fifth national poll in a series of public
opinion surveys conducted by the centre and its partners on democratic
transformation and political reform in Jordan, since 2005, was conducted by
Middle East Marketing and Research Consultants.
The polls were conducted to gauge the perceptions of Jordanians on their
priorities and concerns, democratic procedures, voter attitudes, electoral
culture, political life and governance in general.