Polls & Research
Archive Search
Afghans Grow Skeptical of State of Affairs
(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - More people in Afghanistan are disappointed with their current situation, according to a poll by the Afghan Center for Social and Opinion Research released by ABC, BBC and ARD. 38 per cent of respondents say Afghanistan is headed in the wrong direction, up 14 points since 2007.
Conversely, now 40 per cent of people in Afghanistan think the country is on the right track, down 14 points since 2007.
Afghanistan has been the main battleground in the war on terrorism. The conflict began in October 2001, after the Taliban regime refused to hand over Osama bin Laden, prime suspect in the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. Al-Qaeda operatives hijacked and crashed four airplanes on Sept. 11, 2001, killing nearly 3,000 people.
The United States-led Operation Enduring Freedom and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) led by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) currently command the war on terrorism in Afghanistan.
Hamid Karzai has been Afghanistan’s president since November 2004, when he won the first-ever presidential election in the country with 55.4 per cent of all cast ballots. Before that, he headed an interim government for two years.
The next presidential ballot is scheduled for Aug. 20. Babrak Shinwari, an independent and former communist member of the Afghan legislature, recently referred to Karzai as a weak president, declaring, "Security is getting worse day by day. If the president is not changed we will have a big war in Afghanistan, like we had in Russian times."
Polling Data
Generally speaking, do you think things in Afghanistan today are going in the right direction, or do you think they are going in the wrong direction?
|
|
2009 |
2007 |
2006 |
|
Right direction |
40% |
54% |
55% |
|
Wrong direction |
38% |
24% |
22% |
|
Mixed |
14% |
15% |
17% |
|
No opinion |
9% |
7% |
5% |
Source: Afghan Center for Social and Opinion Research / ABC News / BBC World Service / ARD
Methodology: Face-to-face interviews with 1,534 Afghan adults, conducted from Dec. 30, 2008, to Jan. 12, 2009. Margin of error is 2.5 per cent.