OBAMA MORE POPULAR HERE

Kenya leads the world in its support for US President Barack Obama, a new survey shows.

Further, optimism about national economic conditions has surged more in Kenya than in any of 21 other countries recently surveyed by a US research centre.

Confidence in Kenya’s economic condition has risen 31 percentage points in the past year, according to the Washington-based Pew Research Centre, which surveyed 1,000 Kenyans in April and May.

Kenyans’ increasingly positive outlook stands in marked contrast to economic views in other countries, which remain generally pessimistic.

Only Poland (a 15 point gain) and Nigeria (up 12 points) approached Kenya’s growth in economic optimism.

At the same time, however, a majority of Kenyans (56 per cent) still rate the country’s current economic situation as bad.

And Kenyans overwhelmingly hold their own government, rather than international finance institutions, mainly responsible for economic problems.

The survey finds 93 per cent of Kenyans blame the Grand Coalition government.

“President Obama is extremely popular in Kenya,” with 95 percent expressing confidence in his handling of world affairs, according to the survey.

In addition, Pew’s accompanying report notes, “the vast majority of Kenyans were aware of his personal connection to their nation.”

Mr Obama is far more popular in Kenya than in the US, the survey found. Pew researchers point out, however, that “the US was also relatively popular in Kenya, and in much of Africa, during George W. Bush’s presidency.”

Nations with large Muslim populations are generally found to be much less supportive of Mr Obama than the other countries included in the survey.

“Among Muslim publics — except in Indonesia, where Obama lived for several years as a child — the modest levels of confidence and approval observed in 2009 have slipped markedly,” the Pew report notes.