The Center for Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan has conducted a public opinion poll to evaluate the performance of the government under Dr. Marouf al Bakhit after 100 days on its formation. The poll was carried out between the 9th to the 13th of March 2006. The total size of the ‘National Sample’ amounted to 984 respondents, while the sample size of ‘Opinion Leaders’ amounted to 641 respondents that were divided along the seven categories.
The aim of this poll is to identify the direction Jordanian citizens are taking in evaluating the performance of Dr. al Bakhit’s government one hundred days after its formation, especially with regards to the government’s ability to solve the problems and issues it had dealt with. Also, the poll identified the priorities of Jordanian citizens that the government ought to deal with immediately.
This report consists of four main sections. The first section addresses the general expectations and evaluations of the Jordanian public opinion on the performance of the government compared to the previous governments since 1996. This section also includes the results of all polls that have been carried out for every government (formation, hundred days, 200 days, one year, one year and a half, two years). To be able to properly observe the direction of the Jordanian public opinion towards governments, we have calculated the percentage of respondents that believe that the government “will highly succeed” in carrying out its responsibilities, as well as the percentages of those who believe that the government “has not been successful in carrying out its responsibilities since its formation” in all previous polls.
The second section presents a general comparison between the expectations of respondents and their evaluation of the performance of every individual prime minister, the ministers (with the exception of the prime minister), as well as the government as a whole (both prime ministers and ministerial team). This section calculates the mean into a percentage for the three questions relating to the prime minister, the government, and the ministerial team, in order to observe the trend of public opinion in Jordan since 1996. The third section examines public opinion of Dr. al Bakhit’s abilities in solving specific issues that have been assigned to him, and comparing the results to the original expectations of success that were addressed in the formation poll. The fourth section addresses the main problems currently facing Jordan that the government must immediately address. This also includes citizens’ perceptions of the financial/ economic status of their family during the past three years.