Most Pakistanis hail performance of Yousuf Raza Gilani as PM: survey

ISLAMABAD : A survey conducted by the NGO Gallup Pakistan says most Pakistani citizens gave favourable ratings to the performance of Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani as Prime Minister of Pakistan. The field work for the survey, according to the NGO, was carried out from May 19-20, 2008, while 1595 men and women from all the four provinces were interviewed with proper representation from rural and urban areas.
“Around 38 percent gave favourable ratings to the Prime Minister’s performance, 41 termed the performance as ‘tolerable’, 20 percent gave unfavourable ratings while 2 percent did not give a response,” says the survey.
The survey said that the people mostly hoped that the deposed judges would be reinstated by the ruling coalition despite the fact that there were conspicuous differences between the component parties over the issue.
“Around 57 percent Pakistani people hope that the deposed judges would be reinstated against 41 percent those who see ‘no chance’ of restoration of the deposed judges,” according to the survey.
The survey says that 36 percent nationals favoured the decision of resignation by PML-N federal ministers from the cabinet over the judges issue while 32 percent opposed the decision of the PML-N.
The NGO also put the question of a peace deal reached by the government with the local Taliban in most parts of NWFP.
“56 percent people endorsed the peace deals reached by the federal and provincial governments with local Taliban. 19 percent people opposed the notion while 26 percent did not answer the query,” the survey says.
On the question of inflation, 39 percent people were of the view that this was a result of the corrupt practices of the former government. Around 28 percent blamed the wrong policies adopted by the former regime while 27 percent said it was due to the lack of attention by the new government towards actual problems.