World | Pakistan
Bhutto's PPP party is country's most popular
Sympathy for Al Qaida chief Bin Laden has dropped sharply as Pakistanis look to moderate opposition groups
- AP
- Published: 21:21 February 10, 2008
Islamabad: The party of slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto is the country's most popular, while groups aligned with its president lag far behind, according to a survey released ahead of next week's crucial elections.
The survey, conducted last month for the US-based Terror Free Tomorrow organisation and released over the weekend, is the first since Bhutto was killed in a bomb and gun attack in December.
The survey also found that sympathy for Al Qaida chief Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban has dropped sharply among Pakistanis.
Pakistanis appear to be looking to moderate opposition groups to seek a way out of the mounting violence and political turmoil that have raised concerns about the nuclear-armed country's stability.
But the poll was a slap for President Pervez Musharraf, whose standing has plunged since he began reining in the independent judiciary last March in order to ensure his own re-election - 70 per cent of those questioned wanted him to quit immediately.
Asked who they would vote for in February 18 parliamentary elections, 36.7 per cent opted for Bhutto's secular Pakistan Peoples Party.
The party of another former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, scored 25.3 per cent, pushing the pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League-Q into third place with just 12 per cent.
The Peoples Party hopes to capitalise on a wave of sympathy and revulsion after she died in a suicide bomb and gun attack at an election rally on December 27.
The combined support for the parties of Bhutto and Sharif was just 39 per cent in a similar survey in August, Terror Free Tomorrow said. It provided no breakdown.
However, Pakistan's winner-takes-all electoral system and strong regional-based parties means that a broader-based party such as Bhutto's, whose votes are spread across the country, can struggle to translate their vote bank into power.
Terror Free Tomorrow is a not-for-profit organisation that says it seeks to reduce support for international terrorism.
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