As it was required to know through survey what Pakistani nation thinks about the decision of President General (r) Pervez Musharraf regarding the throwing out of judges. This survey, whose findings were published in all the Pakistani dailies, was conducted by International Republican Institute (IRI), a conservative-leaning civic group based in Washington, USA.
Only God knows how many dollars IRI wasted upon this un-called for survey. It could have gone for the easy way. It could give me handful of dollars (o come on we all are crazy about greenbacks), and I would have told them in a jiffy what they have found after much ado and dollars.
To their utter amazement, they dugout that sixty-seven per cent of those surveyed said President Musharraf should resign immediately. To drop their jaws more, they were told by their survey that a majority (58 per cent) indicated they would prefer to see in power an opposition alliance composed of key anti-Musharraf figures, including former premiers Benazir and Nawaz Sharif.
As it wasn’t suffice, they were thoroughly shocked at the finding that, when asked if they supported or opposed the declaration of emergency, 26 per cent said they supported it while 70 per cent said they opposed; 57 per cent said that they strongly opposed the measure.
On the imposition of emergency on Nov 3 and the dismissal of the Supreme Court judges, their poll said that the voters overwhelmingly opposed the measure.
To make matters more perplexing and confusing for the IRI, and to provide some more salary months to the think thanks in Pentagon, there were some other “revealing” points, including:
– 71 per cent opposed the suspension of the Constitution;
– 77 per cent opposed the detention of the former Supreme Court justices;
– 76 per cent opposed the closure of TV news channels;
– 73 per cent opposed the swearing-in of new Supreme Court justices;
– 70 per cent opposed the ban on political rallies; and
– 76 per cent opposed the crackdown on lawyers and civil society, and the house arrest of opposition leaders.
Oooo La La.
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