Abul-Fotouh leads presidential race, new Cabinet survey reveals

While the renegade Islamist candidate's popularity sank slightly last month, he has nevertheless managed to maintain his edge over rival candidates, a new IDSC opinion poll finds

Cabinet's Information and Decision Support Centre (IDSC) on Thursday issued results of a recent survey on upcoming presidential elections.
According to the survey results, Abdel-Moneim Abul-Fotouh came in first place with 9 per cent of the vote, followed by Ahmed Shafiq with 8 per cent. Amr Moussa received 7 per cent of the votes, meanwhile, whereas Mohamed Morsi received 4 per cent. Candidates Hamdeen Sabbahi andKhaled Ali, for their part, received 2 per cent each.
The survey was conducted by phone from 5 to 7 May from a representative sample of 2264 citizens aged between 18 and 30 from all over the country.
The IDSC survey also revealed that the percentage of undecided voters had declined from 42 per cent in April to 39 per cent this month.Eight per cent of respondents said they would not vote in elections, while 6 per cent declined to reveal who they would vote for. Seventeen per cent of participants said they had not yet decided whether or not they would vote on election day.
Based upon geographical distribution, Abul-Fotouh received 11 per cent of the votes from urban respondents, followed by Moussa with 8 per cent and Shafiq with 7 per cent. Meanwhile, Shafiq received 10 per cent of the vote from rural respondents, followed by Abul-Fotouh with 8 per cent and Moussa with 6 per cent.
Based on religion, Muslim respondents gave Abul-Fotouh 10 per cent of the vote, followed by Shafiq at 8 per cent and Moussa at 7 per cent. For Christian participants, Moussa led the polls with 12 per cent, followed by Sabbahi at 9 per cent and Shafiq at 6 per cent.
The survey further revealed that Abul-Fotouh's popularity had declined from 11 per cent in April to 9 per cent in May. The renegade Islamist candidate is still leading the polls, however, even though Shafiq's popularity rose from 6 per cent in April to 8 per cent in May.
According to the survey, 41 per cent of undecided voters were leaning towards Moussa, whereas 38 per cent were leaning towards Abul-Fotouh and 29 per cent towards Shafiq.
Meanwhile, 60 per cent of respondents expressed the belief that elections would be held on schedule, while 10 per cent believed polls would be delayed. Thirty per cent of respondents said they did not know if elections would be conducted on schedule or not.
The survey also revealed that the percentage of citizens who trusted the elections' integrity had declined from 44 per cent in April to 40 per cent in early May. Meanwhile, the percentage of those who express doubts about the upcoming poll's integrity declined from 12 per cent to 9 per cent in the same period, while 21 per cent were undecided in this regard.
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