ISLAMABAD: The ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and its president and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif have kept the top spot as the most popular party and politician in Pakistan, according to Gallup Pakistan and Pulse Consultant survey.
The poll was conducted last month by Gallup Pakistan and Pulse Consultant in collaboration with a local media group.
Of the respondents interviewed by Gallup Pakistan, 34% said they would vote for PML-N if elections were held today, followed by PTI at 26%. Fifteen per cent said they would vote for the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).
The Pulse Consultant survey showed very similar results, with 36% siding with PML-N, 23% opting for PTI, and 15% going with PPP when asked who they would vote for if elections were held today.
In both surveys, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif emerged as Pakistan’s favourite leader (Pulse: 29%, Gallup: 27%), followed by PTI chief Imran Khan (Pulse: 23%, Gallup: 23%) and PPP’s Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari (Pulse: 13%, Gallup: 8%).
Interestingly, a larger percentage of women (33%) chose Nawaz Sharif as their favourite leader as compared to Imran Khan (16%) and Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari (16%), according to the Pulse Consultant poll.
In both surveys, Shehbaz Sharif was chosen as the most favourite PML-N leader after Nawaz Sharif (Pulse: 50%, Gallup: 50%), followed by Maryam Nawaz (Pulse: 10%, Gallup: 11%) and Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan (Pulse: 8%, Gallup: 8%).
According to the Gallup Pakistan survey, 31% respondents said the PML-N would form the next government. Similarly, 37% of the respondents in the Pulse Consultant survey believed that the PML-N would form the next government, followed by PTI (27%), and PPP (16%).
The PML-N was chosen by most Punjab-based respondents (Pulse: 54%, Gallup: 45%) as most likely to form a government at the federal level. On the other hand, most respondents from KP chose PTI (Pulse: 53%, Gallup: 47%), while most Sindh-based respondents chose PPP (Pulse: 51%, Gallup: 41%) as most likely to form the federal government after the 2018 elections.
The situation varied at the provincial level.
The PML-N emerged as the most popular party in Punjab, while PTI continued its position as the leader in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The PPP also remained the most popular party in Sindh.
In Punjab, 50% respondents sided with PML-N while 31% said they intend to vote for PTI if elections are held today, according to the Gallup Pakistan poll. In the Pulse survey, 55% of Punjab-based respondents opted for PML-N while 20% chose PTI.
In the Gallup Pakistan survey, 44% respondents from Sindh said they would vote for PPP, with a similar percentage (46%) opted for the party in the Pulse survey.
PTI held the top slot in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 47% according to the Gallup Pakistan survey and 53% in the Pulse Consultant poll.
The two surveys showed different results from Balochistan, with 39% siding with PML-N in the Pulse Consultant poll and the Gallup Pakistan survey showing JUI-F (22%), PKMAP (18%), and PML-N (16%) as the top three parties in the province.
About Imran Khan’s call for dissolution of parliament and early elections, more than half of the respondents interviewed in both surveys opted against holding elections immediately.
A large majority (Gallup: 60%, Pulse: 70%) of the respondents were of the view that the current government should govern until general elections scheduled for 2018.
The combined sample size of the study was more than 6,000 households. Gallup Pakistan carried out the survey from October 10 to November 1 using an error margin of +-2 to 3% at 95% confidence level, while the parallel research by Pulse Consultant was conducted from Oct 8 to Oct 25 with a margin of error of 1.62% at 95% confidence level.
