Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: A constituency-wise survey of entire Punjab has found Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) maintaining popularity despite ongoing corruption trial of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, disqualification of its prominent leaders and defection of so-called electables.

According to the survey conducted by the Institute of Public Opinion Research (IPOR), although PML-N is ahead with 51% vote bank, it has largely preserved its vote with only a 2% increase in comparison with that of 2013. This is in contrast with the significant increase in PTI’s vote – from 19% in 2013 to 30% in 2018.

The survey with the biggest-ever sample size of 200,349 respondents from the province was carried out between April 15 and June 2 this year with a response rate of over 72%. All National Assembly constituencies of Punjab (141) were surveyed with average sample size of 1,420 respondents from each constituency.

According to the survey, the PML-N is ahead of PTI with a 5:3 ratio of voters. The majority of the respondents said the load shedding had significantly decreased in the past five years. They reposed trust in the performance of their MNAs and MPAs in terms of development work. However, they identified three most important issues they still face: lack of access to clean drinking water, shortage of gas, and sewerage issues. Health, education, unemployment and corruption received the lowest scores in their priority list.

The survey indicates that the PTI largely took away the PPP’s vote in Punjab, which has now been reduced to 5% from 11% in 2013, as many PPP leaders switched to the PTI, besides some PML-Q leaders. Imran Khan’s party is also considered a beneficiary of the fresh vote as 20 million new voters were enrolled after the population census. Tehreek-e-Labbaik with 3% vote bank emerged as the fourth largest party, whereas PML-Q and Jamaat-e-Islami have 1% vote bank each.

Performance of Shehbaz Sharif, despite his general perception as the most efficient chief minister, hasn’t been well received by the public. To a question of how they see the five-year performance of his government, only 28% rated it very good, whereas 48% termed it average, 13% considered it bad, and 7% declared it very bad. However, 64% respondents were satisfied with the development work carried out by their respective MNAs and 63% endorsed their MPAs.

Unlike yet another general perception that PTI is very popular among the youth, in particular women, the survey gives the verdict in favour of the PML-N.

Of the total respondents, 24% belonged to the age bracket of 26-40 years and identified themselves as supporters of the PML-N compared to 14% for the PTI. The second biggest number of respondents (23%) was in the age bracket of 18-25 years. Of the respondents surveyed, 11% fell in this age group and said their vote was for PML-N in comparison with 8% for the PTI. Some 17% of the respondents were 41-50 years old, with 9% of them supporting the PML-N compared to 5% supporting the PTI.

If a gender-wise comparison is taken, 34% of the men and 17% of the women supported PML-N, whereas 22% men and 8% women respondents supported the PTI.

When the surveyors asked about the single-most important issue facing their constituencies, 17% ticked drinking water and gas, while 16% said it was sewerage. The top three divisions where respondents identified drinking water as the most important issue were Bahawalpur (28%), Sahiwal (25%) and Rawalpindi (22%). Gas was the most important issue in Rawalpindi (22%), Faisalabad (19%) and Gujranwala (19%), while sewerage was the single most important concern for respondents in Multan (22%), Sargodha (21%), and Faisalabad (19%).

Although health, education, unemployment and corruption are generally thought to be the most important issues being faced by Pakistanis, only 3% declared health, education, and unemployment each as the biggest concern, whereas 1% identified corruption. Only 8% pointed towards load shedding as the most important issue.

Responding to a separate question, 67% declared that load shedding had significantly decreased in their respective constituencies in the last five years, 24% said it had not decreased, while 8% didn’t respond.

The survey has also mapped the region-wise vote bank. The PML-N has the highest vote bank in central Punjab (55%). This is followed by western Punjab (52%), southern Punjab (49%), and northern Punjab (42%).

The PTI leads in northern Punjab (31%) and western Punjab (31%), followed by central Punjab (30%) and southern Punjab (29%). The PPP’s highest vote is in southern Punjab (8%).

Published in Daily Times, July 5^th 2018.