Is Hugo Chavez the most popular leader in the Arab world?

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Zogby has released its annual survey (pdf) of public opinion in the Arab world, and there are some interesting results for those of us interested in the intersection of public opinion and geopolitics.

The most intriguing result is that Hugo Chavez is the single most popular leader among Arabs. Asked to name two leaders outside their own country whom they admire most, 36 percent picked Chavez, up from only eight percent last year and double the figure of the two nearest competitors, Bashar al-Assad and Jacques Chirac (who made a good showing despite the fact that he isn’t in office anymore; Tony Blair was also one of the most disliked leaders, suggesting news may travel slowly in that part of the world). Obviously Chavez’s high-profile tweaking of the U.S. goes a long way toward explaining that popularity, but anti-American rhetoric is not enough to please the average Arab, apparently: Mahmoud Ahmedinejad saw his popularity fall almost by half, from 17 percent to ten percent. Sadly, the polls don’t seem to ask in more detail what they like or don’t like about Chavez or Ahmedinejad.

On the question of “Which countries are the greatest threat to you?,” naturally the U.S. and Israel cleaned up. But China made a big jump: from negligible results in 2008, nine percent of Arabs identified China as one of the top two threats. Still, nearly twice as many Arabs said they would prefer China (14 percent) over the U.S. (eight percent) as the world’s only superpower, with Russia (seven percent) barely behind the U.S. Far more than any of those choices, though, Arabs would pick France or Germany (23 percent each) to rule the world.

(Thanks BoRev)