Majority (58%) in 32 Countries Polled Believe President Clinton Should Not Resign Even If Allegations Such as Those Involving Lewinsky Prove True

How do people in different countries around the world view the allegations of sexual misconduct against U.S. President Bill Clinton? If these allegations are proven to be true, does global public opinion think he should resign or not?

The Angus Reid World Poll, conducted in 32 countries during May and June, assessed citizens' awareness of the allegations against the U.S. President, and asked whether or not they felt he should resign if the charges turn out to be true. People were also asked if their own country's leader should step down if similar allegations were proven against them.

The results of this Angus Reid World Poll provide some interesting insights into attitudes towards political leaders in different parts of the world. This survey was conducted in May and June 1998 and precedes Lewinsky's testimony to the Grand Jury and the President's commitment to testify in front of the Grand Jury.

The world has been following Bill Clinton's sex scandals

• The survey results demonstrate the global reach of news concerning U.S. President Bill Clinton's alleged extra-marital sexual relationships: across the 32 countries polled, fully nine in ten respondents (92 percent) said they have heard recently about allegations of sexual misconduct against the U.S. President.
• Awareness was over the 90 percent mark in 21 of the 32 countries. It peaked at 99 percent in Germany and dipped to a still-sizable majority of 67 percent among urban residents in China (polling took place before President Clinton's visit in July).

Support for Clinton to stay on as President prevails across 32 countries

• Across all 32 countries surveyed, people who believe President Clinton should not resign outnumber those who feel that he should by a two-to-one margin: 58 percent of all those polled said he should not resign versus 29 percent who said that he should, if his affair with Ms. Lewinsky, or other affairs, are proven to have happened.
• In 22 of the 32 countries, a majority of respondents think the U.S. president should stay on even if he had a sexual relationship with the former White House intern.
• At the time of the poll, six in ten Americans (61 percent) polled said Bill Clinton should not resign, even if it is proven beyond doubt that the affair with Monica Lewinsky, or similar affairs, took place. Just one-third (33 percent) said that he should resign if the allegations turn out to be true.
• Across the entire survey sample, men and women are just as likely as one another to say that Bill Clinton should not resign if the allegations are proven true. Support for President Clinton staying on as U.S. president also does not vary significantly across generations.

Western Europe supportive of the U.S. president, Asian countries divided

• People in Denmark (80%), France (79%) and Italy (81%) are particularly supportive of President Clinton: four in five think he should not step down. Support for President Clinton staying on is also high in Belgium (73%), Germany (71%), Norway (75%) and Sweden (71%).
• In Turkey (54%), Malaysia (53%) and urban middle- and upper-class India (62%), a clear majority of people think that the U.S. president should resign if the allegations are true. Almost three-quarters of Indonesia's urban elite (72 percent) feel the same, against only one in eight (12 percent) who do not favour his resignation. South Koreans are split on the subject: 43 percent say he should resign if the charges are proven true, while 45 percent think he should not.

What if it was your own country's leader?

• Residents in 26 countries were asked a follow-up question supposing that their own leader was implicated in a similar sex scandal. In 16 of these countries, a majority of respondents said they would want their leader to stay on.
• No less than three-quarters of people in Denmark, France, Israel and Italy would expect their leader to stay on even if proven to have been involved in a similar sexual affair. Two-thirds of people in Australia, Belgium, urban Brazil, the Netherlands and Sweden also feel their own leader should not resign in such an event.
• In India, Indonesia and Turkey -- where a majority think that President Clinton should resign if the allegations against him are true -- a clear majority would also expect their own leader to resign if implicated in a sex scandal. (Again, it should be noted that only urban dwellers who are middle-class or better off were surveyed in India and Indonesia.)
• In eight of the 26 countries, a significantly larger number of people would expect their own leader to resign compared to those who would expect President Clinton to resign if these allegations are true: Argentina, Belgium, China, Indonesia, Norway, Russia, South Korea and Turkey. (But only in three of these eight did a majority believe their leader should resign.)

These results emerged from an international public opinion survey conducted by the Angus Reid Group and released by The Globe and Mail, Canada's national daily newspaper and CTV, Canada's premier television network. This poll involved interviews among a total of 17,761 adults in 32 countries. Data collection was carried out in May and June of 1998.

The target sample size was 500 for each country, with the exception of a 1,000 sample size in urban China, urban India and the United States. In 23 of these 32 countries, a full national probability sample was used. Six countries involved urban-only sampling: Brazil, China, Colombia, Russia, South Africa and Thailand, and three other countries involved urban middle/upper class sampling: India, Indonesia and Mexico. In-person interviewing was used for all urban-only samples except Mexico and Argentina; in all other countries sampled, interviewing was conducted via telephone.

The Angus Reid Group is Canada's premier market research and public opinion polling firm with offices across Canada and the United States. The company also provides international clients with a regularly scheduled quarterly global polling program wherein 32 countries over a two month timeframe are sampled for people's views on private sector and public issues. The group also publishes, on a quarterly basis, The World Monitor, a digest of world public opinion trends and insights gleaned from its world polling activities.

For more information on this news release, please contact:

John Wright [email protected] Senior Vice-President Angus Reid Group (416) 324-2900