Washington: Fifty-five percent of respondents polled in India say a system in which a strong leader can make decisions without parliamentary or judicial interference is a “somewhat" or “very" good way of governing their country, according to a Pew Research Centre survey released Monday.

Indonesia, the Philippines, Russia, and South Africa round out the top five nations, indicating support for unconstrained executive power.

Meanwhile only 6% of Germans and 9% of Swedes back such a political system. Twenty-two percent of Americans are in favour, about four percentage points below the median for the 38 countries surveyed from 16 February to 8 May.

People in wealthier nations “tend to be more committed to representative democracy," according to the report. And in many countries, people with less education and those on the ideological right are “more willing to consider non-democratic alternatives," the authors found. Bloomberg

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