Gallop survey gives hope to PML-N

Lahore: According to the latest Gallop survey, Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) is the most popular party of the country and PTI is on second position whereas popularity of PPP has reduced to ten per cent during the last four and a half years. The popularity of PML-N has increased substantially and its vote bank has increased from 20 per cent to 33 per cent which is more than all other political parties of the country.

As per survey, the electoral prospects of the ruling PPP and its coalition partners are very poor against the PML-N and PML-N is emerging as the biggest political party of the country’s political horizon. The vote bank of PPP was 31 per cent in 2008 which has now decreased to 21 per cent and in this way it has lost 10 percent of its votes during the last four-and-a-half years. Similarly, PPP allies — MQM, ANP, JUI-F and PML-Q — according to the survey, got 35 per cent votes in 2008 but now this number of votes has reduced to 14 per cent. According to the survey report, in Punjab, PML-N has the support of 44 per cent voters, followed by PTI’s 21 per cent. The PPP has support of only 12 per cent voters whereas its allies have only six per cent. Like Punjab, PML-N is gaining remarkable popularity in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the PML-N has 42 percent popularity and PTI is on second position with 25 percent voters while the PPP and its allies (mainly the ruling ANP) have merely 23 percent voters now in the province. According to survey, although there is a slight decrease in PPP support in Sindh and Balochistan, however, the support of PPP and its allies is more than the other parties. About the net performance rating of the PPP government, the survey shows that it was negative 56 percent (-56 percent) in 2012 and 87 percent people believe that the country is heading towards wrong direction. According to survey, 52 percent people believe that the PPP government has badly failed to solve economic and other problems and the national economic prospects will be worst further next year.