Mood of the nation: What new polling says about post-Assad Syria

One of Syria’s first public opinion polls was released last week, offering invaluable insight into the Syrian public’s attitudes on the progress of the new government and the country’s major developments since the fall of Bashar Al-Assad’s regime in 2024.

Launched as a bi-monthly poll by the magazine Syria in Transition, the survey is intended to “promote open government and transparency in which public opinion holds weight and the government is receptive to their attitudes,” Malik Al Abdeh, the Editor-in-Chief of Syria in Transition, tells The New Arab.

The survey, which engaged in 900 face-to-face interviews across Damascus, rural Damascus, and Homs, explored a range of issues from justice to foreign policy.

It found that whilst a majority of Syrians remain supportive of the government, there are some notable misgivings about certain measures.

Syria is heading in the right direction

Fourteen months after the collapse of the Assad regime, 63% of respondents say that their country is heading in the right direction, while 5% say things are going in the wrong direction, and 23% are neutral.

The poll shows that the government “still has a clear majority of support but doesn’t command the complete support of the country,” Abdeh tells TNA.

Around 38% of respondents were unable to say that the country is heading in the right direction, which Abdeh believes “shows there is a basis within public opinion for a political opposition to the governing power”.

The Editor-in-Chief of Syria in Transition says support was particularly present in neighbourhoods with large Sunni populations, reflecting what he believes is a sense of "cultural and social familiarity with the new authorities”.

As polling progresses, this will be a key metric to determine public attitudes towards Syria’s new government. A poll by ETANA in June 2025 found that 73% of respondents were optimistic about the direction the country is headed, suggesting a slight downtick in public support as the euphoria of Assad’s fall diminishes, and the reality of Syria’s hard road to recovery sets in.

Despite this, it is clear that “most people are still willing to give the government the benefit of the doubt,” argues Abdeh.

Upper classes more supportive of the Syrian government

Whilst a clear majority expresses support for the government, this rises based on self-identified social class. Around 90% of those in the ‘high-income class’ approve of the government’s performance, falling to just 65% amongst the ‘low-income class’.

These results were surprising, as the support base for Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) - which has now become the Syrian government - was traditionally located amongst the working, particularly rural class. “Those on lower incomes are getting squeezed right now,” explains Abdeh, as the new government pursues a policy of economic liberalisation.

The government has, for example, cut subsidies for crucial goods and services, including fuel and cell phone tariffs, with electricity prices being hiked by a whopping 6000%, leaving many, in a country where 90% of people live beneath the poverty line, unable to make ends meet.

Conversely, “it’s a good time to be rich right now in Syria,” says Abdeh, as new investment opportunities open up and Syria begins to reconnect with the global economy.

“In time, I expect the support from the lower classes to decline even further as the economic reforms really bite.”

Support for diplomatic engagement with Israel

On the foreign policy front, people have responded positively to the government’s response to Israeli aggression and occupation of Syrian territory. Around 50% expressed support for using only diplomatic means to solve the issue, and 36% supported ignoring Israel for now. Only 14%, meanwhile, support some degree of military action against Israel.

“People are clearly tired of war,” says Abdeh. “And they know that Syria is not in a state right now to engage in another war.”

Anecdotal evidence certainly supports this, as it is rare to meet a member of the public in Syria who genuinely believes that Syria could, let alone should, go to war with Israel.

Despite that, attitudes have certainly hardened following Israel’s intervention in the Suweida crisis in July 2025.

In the first six months after the fall of Assad’s regime, the Syrian government made numerous attempts to convey to Israel that it wasn’t a threat, meeting representatives of the Syrian Jewish community and arresting two members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad group who participated in the 7 October attacks.

On the ground, attitudes were ambivalent. Many people expressed simultaneous condemnation of Israel’s systematic violations in Gaza and hope for some permanent settlement with Israel on the southern border.

Yet, since July, most Syrians, with the notable exception of sections of the Druze community living in Suweida, perceive Israel’s interests - characterised by a strategy of fostering internal fractures and weakening the central government - as inalienably opposed to the notion of a unified Syrian state.

Despite that, it is clear from the poll that few would want the government to pursue a military strategy in dealing with Israeli aggression in Syria.

Opposition to Russia and support for Europe

Syrians are not totally supportive of President Ahmed Al-Sharaa’s foreign policy positions. A plurality of 42% of respondents find the continued presence of Russian bases to be unacceptable, whereas 32% say it “depends on the conditions”. Only 13% find it acceptable.

As part of Al-Sharaa’s ‘no enemies’ approach to foreign policy, he has sought a rapprochement with Russia and visited President Vladimir Putin twice in the last year, whose 2015 intervention in the Syrian civil war was critical to propping up Assad’s regime.

Each visit prompted small-scale demonstrations against Syria’s normalisation of relations with Moscow.

Yet, reflecting a broader geopolitical realignment, 61% respondents viewed Europe’s role in Syria as either positive or very positive, in comparison to 17%, who saw Europe’s role as either negative or very negative.

Over the last year, Syria has pivoted towards the West. The EU and the US lifted sanctions on the country in June and November, respectively. Al-Sharaa visited President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysée Palace in May and became the first Syrian president to visit the White House in November.

His visit preceded the announcement that Syria would join the US-led global anti-Islamic State (IS) coalition.

This positive attitude “likely reflects Europe’s previous opposition to the Assad regime, and the fact that it represents a major source of possible investment and relief funding,” says Abdeh.

The role of public opinion in shaping Syria's future

Malik Al-Abdeh considers himself a democrat, and for him, “public opinion polls are in some part the DNA of any functioning democracy”.

Popular sentiment was often ignored, sidelined or crushed under the boot of Assad’s dictatorial rule, and so he hopes that the existence of “digestible, readable polling on the Syrian people’s attitudes” will help ensure that the government “remains aware and responsive to popular sentiment”.

Whilst Abdeh intends to scale up his polling to cover more respondents across the whole of Syria, the field is still in its infancy, and it remains to be seen whether Syria’s authorities will look favourably on open access to public opinion, especially if attitudes shift against their policy priorities.

Cian Ward is a journalist based in Damascus, covering conflict, migration, and humanitarian issues

Follow him on X: @CP__Ward

Edited by Charlie Hoyle