ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has emerged as the most popular leader followed by his younger brother and Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and arch political rival and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan, a survey said.

According to the survey carried out by the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (Pildat), Nawaz Sharif remained ahead with an approval rating of 75 per cent and his brother at 72 per cent. The PTI chief could generate an approval rating of 49 per cent to emerge as the most popular leader after the Sharif brothers.

Other national political leaders that the poll included had relatively lower ratings.

MQM chief Altaf Hussain emerged as the least popular leader in Pakistan with an approval rating of 13 per cent. PML-Q chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain also earned a substantially lower rating at 19 per cent, ANP president Asfandyar Wali at 18 per cent and PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari 27 per cent.

The results have been released from a two-part survey covering separately the quality of governance and democracy.

The survey was first conducted upon the completion of the first year of the national and provincial assemblies and the government in office in May 2014.

The nationwide poll was conducted again from June 2 to 12, 2015, following the completion of the second year of the assemblies and the government.

The respondents for the survey included 3,231 citizens from rural and urban areas from all the four provinces, including various age, income, education and language groups of the population.

As many as 59 per cent of the respondents believed that the elections 2013 were somewhat to completely transparent and fair.

On the contrast, 30 per cent of them saw the polls as somewhat to completely rigged. For the democracy survey conducted at the end of the first year of the elected government, 53 per cent of the respondents believed that the 2013 election were completely to somewhat transparent and fair and 37 per cent thought they were somewhat to completely rigged.

Published in Dawn, October 20th , 2015

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