The latest poll from WorldPublicOpinion.org demonstrated that out of 20 nations surveyed, no political leader inspires substantial confidence or trust "to do the right thing regarding world affairs." The international players investigated in the report included global and regional leadership from Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and Eurasia/Middle East. The largest focus area of analysis included global opinion surveys of United States President George W. Bush, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, newly-transitioned President Vladmir Putin, President Hu Jintao of China, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan. The 19,751 respondents were taken from nations that comprised 60 percent of the world's population, large and small territories both represented.

President Bush resulted as one of the worlds least trusted leaders, ranking the second to last world leader that inspires confidence in global affairs. Fifteen nations rate the leader of the free world negatively, while only two (Nigeria 60%, and India 45%) are even marginally positive. Interestingly, Bush is surpassed only to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who is rated only slightly more negative in more nations worldwide. This is no surprise, considering even in the United States Bush’s approval rating has recently hit an all-time low. According to the latest Washington Post-ABC poll, 68 percent of Americans disapprove of the job President Bush is doing – 54 percent strongly.

According to WorldPublibOpinion.org’s study, Chinese public opinion of Bush has softened, with a ten point increase in positive views since last year. Not surprisingly, the most negative views come from the Middle East region, and despite foreign policy efforts nearly all Palestinians (95%) express low confidence, 79 percent with “no confidence at all.” Argentina and Mexico were also largely negative, with Mexico’s negative outlook increasing 16 points since last year. Ironically, Iran reported the mildest negative ratings in its region. Bush also got the highest average percentage of negative ratings, totaling 67 percent.

The most fascinating piece of information provided by this study, in my opinion, shows that the only international leader in play to elicit more confidence than distrust regarding global affairs is UN Security General Ban Ki-moon. Ban’s country of origin, South Korea, gave the largest number of positive ratings at 83 percent “a lot/some confidence.” Nigeria, China, Britain, France, India, Indonesia, and Azerbaijan all gave majority positive ratings as well. Very interestingly, despite sanctions from the UN Security Council to stop uranium enrichment programs, Iranians also reported mostly positive (43 to 18%). The nations demonstrating largely negative views were all five from the Middle East region, the largest in Palestine. The US, Russia, Argentina and Thailand expressed “not too much” confidence predominantly, relatively few with “no confidence at all.” Those expressing a lack of confidence are surmised to be expressing a lack of familiarity with the largely new and low-profile UN Secretary General.

What does this reveal about the status and opinion of global leadership? At least from this specific analysis, the overall worldwide consensus indicates more confidence in the United Nations leadership than any other national figure worldwide. Steven Kull, director of WorldPublicOpinion.org reported, “While the worldwide mistrust of George Bush has created a global leadership vacuum, no alternative leader has stepped up into the breach. Hu Jintao and Vladmir Putin are popular among some nations, but more mistrust them that trust them. Also, the nations that trust them are not organized into any clusters that have the potential to be a meaningful bloc.”

Encouragingly, with the November elections emerging, the next President of the United States has an opportunity to regain international trust regarding global affairs, hopefully alongside UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.