Majority of Pakistanis oppose early elections, dissolution of parliament: survey

KARACHI: A large majority of Pakistanis oppose calls for holding early elections and believe the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) federal government should be given a chance to govern till 2018, the results of the nationwide Jang Geo News Poll have revealed.

In the survey, conducted last month in collaboration with Gallup Pakistan and Pulse Consultant, respondents were asked the following question:

PTI chairperson "Imran Khan has immediately called for dissolving the parliament and holding early elections, while other people believe that the government should be given a chance to govern till 2018. Which of the two is closest to your view?"

More than half of the respondents interviewed in both surveys from across Pakistan opted against dissolution of parliament and holding elections immediately.

60% of the respondents in the Gallup Pakistan survey and 70% of the Pulse Consultant sample were of the view that the current government should be given a chance to govern until general elections scheduled for 2018.

At the provincial level, the answers were similar, except for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa-based respondents interviewed by Gallup Pakistan, 61% of whom opted against giving the federal government a chance to govern until general election scheduled for 2018.

From the sample interviewed by Pulse Consultant, 54% of Balochistan-based respondents wanted early elections.

At the same time, 60% of the Pashto-speaking respondents interviewed by Gallup Pakistan thought parliament should be dissolved and elections should be held immediately. Similarly, 54% of respondents who said they would vote for the PTI and 51% of respondents hoping to vote for the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) thought elections should be held immediately.

Almost three out of every four persons—74% of the respondents in the Gallup Pakistan survey and 78% of the respondents in the Pulse Consultant survey—said they were likely to vote in the upcoming elections.

You can read more on the findings from the #JangGeoNewsPoll here.

Note from Editor/Disclaimer: The Jang-Geo-News poll is carried out regularly on a national level according to internationally recognised principles of scientific polling. Large media houses across the world carry out these surveys to assess the perception and opinions of the public.

In order to make it more balanced and transparent, the Jang-Geo-News poll was carried out in collaboration with two different research agencies—Gallup Pakistan, one of the renowned survey companies in Pakistan, and Pulse Consultant, one of the fastest growing research agencies in the country.

The results represent public opinion computed on the basis of views expressed by anonymous respondents selected randomly and interviewed face-to-face. Such surveys contain a margin of error, and should not be taken as a basis for casting votes.

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.