Vox Populi

The results of the “Voice of the People” 2005 survey were published on the BBC website today. The survey questioned more than 51,000 people in 68 countries with the aim of measuring world opinion in what is basically one broad area.

The validity of the survey as “worldwide” has to be questioned because of some glaring omissions, mainly that China is not included in the survey and Egypt alone represents the Arab world. The reason for this is that the survey was conducted by Gallup International and was paid for by Gallup’s clients, and therefore focused on markets which were important to those clients.

Here are some of the findings:

Is your country governed by the will of the people?

Worldwide, only 30% said yes.

These are the percentages of people who said NO, by region:
North America – 60%
Western Europe – 65%
Eastern and Central Europe – 73%
Africa – 61%
Asia-Pacific – 65%
Latin America – 69%

Are your elections free and fair?

Worldwide, 47% said yes, 48% said no.

Paul Reynolds, who wrote the BBC article points out certain contradictions. He offers the UK as an example:
66% said the government was not by the will of the people;
70% said elections were free and fair.

I disagree with Mr Reynolds: I do not think that those two percentages are necessarily contradictory. Elections come first and they can be free and fair (theoretically, at least) but when your choices are Dumb and Dumber, where does that leave you? And once Dumber (theoretically speaking) is elected, no one can guarantee that s/he will govern by the will of the people.

Reynolds goes on to quote Churchill: Democracy is the worst system of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

…which could possibly mean that anarchy is indeed the way forward, but I shall leave that to DD as I still have some doubts.

Which of the following do you trust?

The BBC did not list all of the possible answers but here are some of the results:

Religious leaders came out on top globally, at 33%, but there was a world of difference amongst regions:
Africa – 74%
South-east Asia – 68%
North America – 49%
Scandinavia – 12%

Politicians came in low, at about 13% worldwide, but they did better in North America than anywhere else at 23%. All of Europe, in contrast, was at 10%.

Who would you like to give more power to in your country?

Global figures:
“Intellectuals” (defined as writers, academics, etc) – 35%
Religious leaders – 25%
Military – 20%
Business people – 20%
Journalists – 20%
Politicians – 16%

Alarming: religious leaders came in first in North America at 37%. Separation of church and state, anyone?


*some of my figures may be off by 1-2% as I had to read some of them off very small graphs.