The world is hoping for another president

Do I get into hot water here with another political comment? Not sure - but I want to show the data that were published in the New Straits Times (Malaysia) yesterday (quoting The Guardian of the UK). This follows another entry into this blog about the opinion about the US elections in Asia http://alwayswow.blogspot.com/2004/10/asia-is-hoping-for-another-president.html).

Three questions were asked in the survey. The first

Question: Would you prefer to see the election ofGeorge W Bush of John Kerry on Nov 2?

(First number Bush, second Kerry)

Australia 28/ 54%
Britain 22/50
Canada 20/60
France 16/72
Israel 24/30
Japan 30/ 51
Mexico 20/ 55
Russia 52/ 48
S-Korea 18/ 68
Spain 13/ 58
Average 27/ 54

Those are dramatic numbers. I read somewhere else earlier that in Africa there are only two countries supportiveof Bush.

There are more questions in the survey, indicating that the majority of people actually have a favourable opinion of Americans - the average is 68% to 23% for favourable with Mexico and Spain being the closest:

Mexico is 51% for favourable and 43% for unfavourable andin Spain, 47% of the population thinks favourable to 32% unfavourable.

The third question is inquiring about the opinion about the invasion of Iraq.

By far the majority, however, said that the invasion of Iraq was wrong (right :25% wrong 68% on average).

What does it say? Well, we still like Americans, and are able to distinguish between politicians per se and the people who live in the US. Most believe that the invasion of Iraq was wrong.

This can have some implications for business, medium to longterm. I believe that currently, US businesses are still seen as okay, but if there is no change in policies, or no communication or whatever, perceptions might change, as the emergence of several products that were clearly directed agains US MNCs over the last year or so have shown.