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.