International Republican Institue which has since 2006 been conducting some valuable opinion polling in Pakistan has just recently released their tenth survey –
The poll was conducted March 4-30, 2009 comprised of a randomly selected sample of 3,500 adult men and women from 216 rural and 134 urban locations in 51 districts in all four provinces of Pakistan. The margin of error for the national sample will not exceed + 1.66 percent
The 54 slide presentation is also worth a quick glance to understand the political undercurrents that have shaped up over the last three months, PPP and Asif Zardari on a popularity decline to 9% and Nawaz Sharif leads by a massive margin at 55%.
The demographics of the survey were as follows displaying a good spectrum of people opinionated
To the questin on What is the most important issue in Pakistan – shows that an overwhelming majority felt that Inflation [46%] and unemployment [22%] were far more important then terrorism coming third at a distant 10%.
There is an overwhelming majority which has continued to feel that religious extremism is a serious problem in Pakistan rising by 14% from October, coming at par with the survey conducted in September 2007 – immediately after the Lal Masjid incident or for that matter the January 2008 survey, which was closely preceded with the riots of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination in December 2007
A good 52% of the people do NOT support the Army fighting the extremists in NWFP and FATA – it may be poised at a slightly half the population even with the 1.6% margin of error – but does go to show that there is a definite opinion that a non-military tactic might help solve the problem
To the question of American involvement in these incursions there is a strong resentment against them with only 24% approving such military tactics
In reference to the enforcement of Sharia in Swat there is an astonishing 80% approval for such a system. Quite contrary to what has been portrayed by the media and the liberals
Whilst a good 74% believed that this deal would have brought peace to the region
Conclusions
Granted this is an opinion carried out in March, probably just before the northern areas in Pakistan nose spiraled out of control, what needs to be noted that most people do not favor a military intervention whilst quite a large majority of the polled population believed that Sharia should be enforced in the region.
Comments
19 responses to “Survey shows 52% people NOT favoring Army incursion in NWFP | 72% supported Peace Deal”
I guess the media needs to come up with more flogging videos and more and more people would be favouring the bombardment of Talibans.
Then they would retaliate and more and more people would die.
Then the Govt will do another operation……..
and then they would retaliate……………..
Who is the sucker here? The whole Pakistan.
and who is the winner? the enemies of Pakistan
As Bush once said…BRING IT ON
I doubt it shows the opinions of most of Pakistan but if it does looks like they still haven't learned their lesson of democracy i dont blame America or anyone if Pakistan breaks up if Pakistani themselves are not against extremism and want to do peace deals with the people who want to kill them and promote American agenda in Pakistan.
IRI is known Recipient of grants from National Endowment for Democracy. NED is the same organization which has been proven to destabilize countries. Venezuela is case in point.
IRI is one of NEDs core organization.
here is more.
http://tazakino.com/article.php/covert-us-support…
If Pakistan is to progress we must have our own polling organization without funded agendas
no wonder alarmists say pakistan is going to break up…
A sample size of 3500 being used to generalize the thoughts of 170 million, wow. If anything, the operation should’ve started much sooner or we should have the tribes handle this threat, but that time is gone and we need to act now. Why don’t you bring up a survey of the displaced people and ask them would they rather live under that threat or flee?
If one sees the survey, few alarming issues are present:
1) The coalition of PPP-MQM-ANP is not liked by most but still in power (OPRESSION)
2) Very few hold the most resources (ECONOMIC INJUSTICE)
3) Chaos is in effect except support for Nawaz Sharif
4) Terrorism/Extremism is more propogated than present!!
5) Literacy and Democracy on bottom of problems (MEDIA culprit)
But.. I am being said by EVERYONE that Pakistanis oppose Talibans now and favor operation? *grin*
the media and liberals, eh teeth?
so which side of the liberal conservative divide do you fall on?
the survey also says that the media is the most admired institution of the country, just ahead of the army with both polling over 80%…
considering that it hasn't even been 12 months since mushie was forced to leave, i wouldn't be too optimistic in judging the collective wisdom of pakistanis… *grin*
The operation would be a really bad idea if the army loses and it drags and and on. Public which is so gung ho now will be against the operation if it is not sucessful.
Pakistani army has never won a war except in Lal masjid.
Doubt they can pull this off. Time will tell.
If the army wins, fine. But if the cant control swat at the end of this operation, Kayani & Co should be fired. Its thier reponsibility to figure out if the operation can be sucessful before getting caught in it. People must pay for their incompetence and impotence.
People must pay for their incompetence and impotence.
skeptic
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This will remain a dream in pakistan where you can get away with anything you do. We have so many traitors in our parliament and our political parties; some in dubai; some in london; none is taken to account.
don't start yelling for the army when taliban will forcefully beat the hack out of your female family members MR.Skeptic
Ofcourse I will yell at the army when the damn taliban hit my family.
They made the taliban, armed them, brainwashed them with jihad..
made them more determined then themselves..
then did panga with them when the dont have the nuts to finish the job.
They better finish the job.. ow.. they should be strung up..
Something I got through email:
1) IRI has generally been pretty credible so far. Their statistics correlated with election results very well.
2) The survey was conducted before the Peace Deal was scrapped. Hence there will be a bias in favor of the Peace Deal since the media was kind enough to claim it would work.
3) More number (74%) of Pakistanis identified religious extremism as a serious threat than Oct (60%).
4) More people identified Al-Qaeda and Taliban operating from Pakistan as a threat(69%) than ever before.
5) Support for military operation against the Taliban is at the highest it has ever been (45%). If a survey was conducted today, it would have a higher number than this since this one was conducted pre-Taliban violation of peace deal.
6) 73 % of people thought peace deal would strengthen Taliban. 53 % of people thought peace deal would strengthen Al-Qaida.
7) Majority (56%) would support Taliban demand of Sharia in the rest of Pakistan. Most people (64%) would want a coalition of religious parties led by PML-N to rule Pakistan
8) Nawaz Sharif is by far the leader who people think can get them out of these problems. 55 % have faith he can help Pakistan out of this while no one else is in double figures. Next is Zardari at 9 % followed by Imran Khan at 5%
9) Only 3 people have more liked than disliked. These are Nawaz Sharif, Shahbaz Sharif and Iftikhar Chaudhry. Imran Khan is 4th with 1 % more people disliking him than liking him.
10) Zardari is still the most hated Pakistan (72%), more than Altaf Hussain (70%), Ch Shujaat (70%), Asfand Yar Wali (69%), Pervez Elahi (69%), Baitullah Mehsud (66%).
11) PML-N seems to be heading towards 2/3rd majority again in next elections. They are the most popular party Nationally and in all provinces except Sindh where PPP is still the most popular.
12) PML-Q has pretty much finished. Their support is below 1 %, nationally as well as in 3 provinces (Balochistan 6 %)
13) Imran Khan and MQM are only popular in 3 % of the National vote bank.
Imran Sahib,
he he… i thought I was the skeptical cynic 🙂
Quite agree with you. Its ridicolous that we even talk about the writ of the government when all the government does is exploit the masses for the benefit of a few.
I wait on the road while some moron moves about in a convoy. Why should I wait for some bloody VIP. Inconvience hundreds for one moron. Well sometimes I get out of the car and curse the moron on the top of my voice asking other motorists to join me. Its Funny that the Cops actually apologize to me saying they dont like it either.
Qabza groups dont let go of my family properties.
This is the writ of the Government? what the hell is this?
Writ of the Government is doing a deal so Zardari can loot and go scott free. And I paid **** load of taxes and I get audited. Each step has bloody red tape with it and I have to wait in line. And the bloody VIP does not have to do go to any lines.
This kind of unjust society cannot and will not and frankly does not deserve to survive.
Wake up people.
http://www.jang.com.pk/jang/may2009-daily/13-05-2…
An inferrence based on this survey
Survey or with out survey, Killing your own people does not make sense. On the asking of USA we are destroying the most simple people in Pakistan as well as our first line of defenders.
US Media of which Pakistani is a great follower is acting as Dr. Goebles (Hitler info minister) who believes in repeating lies so many times that it started sounding true. Thi is what Pakistani media is doing. Paki media is immature as well as a sold out agent of US and UK
hummmmm…that is interesting after such a intense propaganda,flogging video, beheading videos etc etc etc..
Teetho, I hope you didn't block my IP as I wasn't able to see the comments until I changed my IP. I hope you are not running a censor board at your blog.
The condition of people of swat is like Paletinians. The same people who took away their land provided them with refugee camps and even provided them special 'refugee' visa to live in any land but their own.
all we do is rant and rant; we do nothing concrete to rid ourselves of these feudals.
part of the problem is that these b******* in the govt have so much screwed the common man in little things like unavailability of jobs; petrol prices; feeding the family and what not; that the people do not have the time to rise against the govt. ask any one on the road how to fix the situation and he will be like "chal raha hai chalne do jesa bi hai".
we need to get rid of this mentality and hang these feudals by their pair outside the parliament. if the people dont want change; well whats the shouting about…?