Bhutto trailing in poll
Bhutto trailing in poll
KARACHI, Pakistan (Reuter): Ousted prime minister Benazir
Bhutto is trailing well behind her main rival, Nawaz Sharif, in
the run-up to Pakistan's Feb. 3 elections, an opinion poll
obtained by Reuters yesterday said.
The poll, to be published in the English-language monthly
Newsline tomorrow, said 33 percent of 2,048 people interviewed in
13 cities wanted to see Sharif become the next prime minister,
against 25 percent who favored Bhutto.
Twelve percent preferred cricketer-turned-politician Imran
Khan, while 30 percent said they would vote for someone else.
The Karachi-based Newsline found that 29 percent of those
polled said they would vote for Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League
(PML), 23 percent for Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and
10 percent for Imran's Tehrik-i-Insaaf (Justice Movement).
About 38 percent said they would vote for a variety of other
political and regional parties.
President Farooq Leghari called the elections, Pakistan's
fifth in 12 years, after sacking Bhutto's government on Nov. 5 on
disputed charges of corruption and misrule.
Newsline said the PML was the front-runner in Pakistan's most
populous province of Punjab, while the PPP vote seemed to be
split in the southern province of Sindh, its main power base.
"The PPP seems to have lost ground in the interior of Sindh
because of the challenge from the PPP-Shaheed Bhutto," it said,
referring to a PPP splinter group led by Ghinwa Bhutto, the
Lebanese-born widow of Murtaza Bhutto, Benazir's slain brother.
Murtaza and seven companions were killed in a controversial
shoot-out with police in Karachi on Sept. 20.
"In Larkana, (Bhutto's home town), the PPP-SB has an edge over
the PPP. This development is possibly an outcome of the rumours
implicating Asif Ali Zardari in Murtaza Bhutto's murder."
Zardari, Bhutto's husband, is in jail facing changes linking
him with Murtaza's killing. He says he is innocent.
Newsline said about 35 percent of those polled said they did
not expect the elections to be fair and independent, against 20
percent who thought they would. Forty-five percent said they did
not know.
The monthly found that 51 percent believed an anti-corruption
drive launched by the caretaker government was unfair, against 24
percent who thought the opposite. The remainder had no opinion.