Islamabad, Dec 13 (DPA) Less than four weeks ahead of Pakistan’s crucial parliamentary elections, voters overwhelmingly want strongman President Pervez Musharraf to resign and support the country’s main opposition parties, a survey released Thursday said.
Musharraf has been under fire over his decision last month to declare a state of emergency, suspend the constitution and sack Supreme Court judges who, he feared, would nullify his October re-election. Seventytwo per cent of those polled said they did not support his re-election and 67 per cent said he should resign.
The nationwide survey of 3,520 people was conducted in late November by the International Republican Institute (IRI), a Washington-based democracy-building organization.
“Musharraf’s move polarized the country, and this polarization carries through the other attitudes and opinions of the Pakistani electorate,” the survey concluded.
“Throughout the poll, 25 to 33 percent remained supportive of President Musharraf and were positive about the condition of the country. Seventy-five to 66 percent expressed anger at the current state of affairs, desired change and were anti-Musharraf.”
The news was not much better for Musharraf’s main political backer, the Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q), which was supported by only 23 percent of those surveyed.
However, the country’s main opposition parties, Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party and Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-N, garnered 30 percent and 25 percent respectively.
The main opposition parties have agreed to contest the Jan 8 elections but are already claiming that Musharraf’s caretaker government is working to rig the polls in favour of the PML-Q. Bhutto has called upon her supporters to prepare to stage street protests beginning the day after the election.
Musharraf needs the polls to go smoothly to avert yet another political crisis, which his main foreign backer, the US, fears will hamper nuclear-armed Pakistan’s ability to fight Taliban and Al Qaeda militants who are regrouping along the country’s western border with Afghanistan.
During a campaign swing Wednesday in the North-West Frontier Province, Bhutto said she was open to forming a coalition with Sharif but would not join forces with Musharraf and the PML-Q.