CAIRO: Expectations that President Barack Obama’s speech will improve US relations with the Muslim world rose to 77 percent after the address, according to a poll conducted by the Egyptian Cabinet Information and Decision Support Center (IDSC).
Before Thursday’s speech, another IDSC poll showed that only 65 percent expected the visit to improve relations.
Despite being dubbed by international and local media as a historical speech and a turning point in US-Muslim relations, 45 percent of Egyptians did not listen to or read US President Barack Obama’s address to the Muslim world last Thursday, revealed the poll.
According to the results, 61 percent said they did not listen to or read the speech because they were too busy, while 27 percent said they were not home at the time.
The rest cited other reasons such as health problems and not being interested in watching television.
The aim of the poll was to measure the level of public awareness of Obama’s visit to Egypt, get insight into how his speech was received and input about the impact of his visit on the relations between the US, Egypt and the Muslim world.
The poll, which was conducted via phone interviews on the two days immediately following Obama’s Thursday speech, surveyed 1,721 Egyptians over 18 years old across the socioeconomic spectrum around the country.
The results revealed that despite all the publicity, 19 percent of Egyptians did not know about Obama’s visit to Egypt.
Out of the 55 percent who knew about he visit and the speech, 12 percent did not know that the venue of the speech was Cairo University.
The poll also surveyed what people identify as the most important issues Obama covered in his speech. The Palestinian issue along with the Arab-Israeli relations was cited as the key issue by 48 percent.
The relations between the US and the Muslim world came in second, cited by 22 percent as the most important issue. “Speaking about Islam in general followed at 20 percent.
This was followed by the situation in Iraq (18), religious freedom and mutual respect between religions (13), quoting verses from the Quran (13), peace between countries (13), women’s rights (9), economic development (8), the situation in Iran (7), nuclear weapons (5) and the situation in Afghanistan (4).
Democracy was cited by only 3 percent as the most important issue. The poll also showed that 37 percent “fully believed everything Obama as opposed to 5 percent, who “believed nothing. Forty-one percent were on the fence, saying that they “partially believed him.
