Sisi’s approval rating shows signs of slipping, suggests poll

Six months into his administration, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s approval rating appears to be holding steady at 86 percent, according to a recent poll conducted by Baseera (the Egyptian Center for Public Opinion Research).

The poll results were largely consistent with a similar survey conducted last month. In the most recent poll, Sisi’s disapproval rating was low at only 6 percent, while 8 percent of the respondents were undecided.

However, there was one significant difference in December’s survey — the number of Egyptian’s who “highly approve” of Sisi’s presidency has dipped from last month’s 66 percent to 58 percent. Approval ratings among the youth have also dipped, sliding from 57 percent in November to 49 percent this month.

The decline is even more drastic among youth with university-level education or higher. Only 41 percent of this demographic highly approves of Sisi’s performance to date, according to Baseera.

But this slide was also noteworthy among the poorer segments of society, only 56 percent of whom “highly approved” of Sisi’s performance, as compared to 65 percent of the wealthier respondents.  

If presidential elections were held again tomorrow, 79 percent of participants said they would re-elect Sisi, another decline from 82 percent of respondents last month. Nine percent of polled Egyptians said they would not vote for Sisi again, while 12 percent said their vote would depend on who else was running in the race.

Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb’s approval rating was fair at 56 percent, with 15 percent of respondents rating his performance as average, 3 percent condemning his performance and 26 percent undecided.