"Although the majority of Arabs believe Syria’s President Basher al-Assad should resign in the wake of the regime’s brutal treatment of protesters, fewer Syrians are supportive of an immediate leadership change.
According to the latest opinion poll commissioned by The Doha Debates, Syrians are more supportive of their president with 55% not wanting him to resign. One of the main reasons given by those wanting the president to stay in power was fear for the future of the country.
That level of support is not mirrored elsewhere in the region with 81% of Arabs wanting President Assad to step down.
They believe Syria would be better off if free democratic elections were held under the supervision of a transitional government.
The poll’s finding support the result of November’s Doha Debate in which 91% of the audience called for President Assad to resign.
If President Assad resigns, Syria’s relations with Turkey, Lebanon and the United States are expected to improve while relations with Iran and Israel will worsen, according to the opinion poll findings.
The poll conducted by YouGov Siraj questioned more than 1,000 people in the Arab world between December 14 and 19."
"..There are several flaws in the methodology. The sampling frame was YouGov's regional panel of 220 000 online respondents and therefore overrepresents internet users who are overwhelmingly young and urban. Secondly, the survey over-represents internet users who bothered to complete the survey--in other words people who feel strongly one way or another vis-a-vis the regime. There also seems to be an overinflated number of GCC respondents (the majority being Saudi) and few women respondents...I am sure if the sampling frame was a telephone directory for example, the results would have been skewed further in favour of Asad. And where on earth are all the questions they asked Syrians?...But the bottom line is, if the Qatar Foundation acknowledges this figure then we can safely assume it is higher...."
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