This House believes that Arab revolutions will just produce different dictators
Tuesday February 22 2011
Tunis, Tunisia
MOTION REJECTED
by 26% to 74%
Opinion poll
Doha, Qatar. 22 March 2011: Nearly 80 percent of Arabs believe that Libya's Colonel Gaddafi will be the next leader to be ousted by popular uprising, according to the latest survey carried out by The Doha Debates and YouGov.
Algeria's President Bouteflika and Bahrain's Emir Sheikh Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa were also seen as vulnerable, with both attracting roughly one-third of respondents votes as the next leader to be toppled.
The poll followed a televised debate in Tunis, on 22 February, where the motion ‘This House believes that Arab revolutions will just produce different dictators' was rejected by 74 percent of the audience.
Over 1,000 respondents in 16 Arab nations completed the poll, including citizens from Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and number of other countries that have witnessed demonstrations in recent weeks.
The report reveals widespread optimism in the region in the wake of recent troubles with over three-quarters of respondents stating an expectation that the ongoing Arab revolutions will give rise to new, more democratic systems of government.
Arabs are divided on whether Islamist groups will attempt to take political power in either Tunisia or Egypt, and believe that an ‘Islamist power struggle' is more likely to take place in Egypt than Tunisia.
Respondents in North Africa, the part of the region that has seen two successful revolutions, have the biggest faith in the effectiveness of their revolutions to bring about real change, while those in the GCC were the least hopeful.
Nine out of ten respondents believe social networking websites played an important role in organizing and spreading the Arab revolutions.
Two-thirds of respondents claim they are not satisfied with the role the US has played during recent events.
Polling dates: 7 - 13 March 2011
Download the polling data [PDF]
Watch online
