Archives

ISLAMABAD, Oct 1 (Reuters) - An opinion poll commissioned by the BBC shows most Pakistanis support General Pervez Musharraf in giving the army a permanent role in running the country.

Based on 2,827 interviews in over 200 towns, cities and villages throughout Pakistan, the poll showed 69 percent of Pakistanis thought Musharraf had done a "good" or "somewhat good" job since he took power in a bloodless coup in 1999.

Over half were against his decision to hand over foreign al Qaeda suspects to the United States, while a third also opposed his crackdown on Islamic militant groups within Pakistan.

Musharraf went from international pariah to key U.S. ally after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, when he threw his weight behind the U.S.-led war on terror.

He has always defended his coup by saying he had to prevent corrupt politicians from bleeding the country dry, and the vast majority of Pakistanis seemed to agree at first.

But his credibility at home fell after a controversial April referendum which gave him another five years as president but which critics said was massively rigged in his favour.

He later courted more controversy by introducing constitutional reforms cementing the army's role in running the country, including the creation of a National Security Council (NSC) with the power to dismiss elected parliaments.

Musharraf said the NSC, nearly half of whose members would be drawn from the armed forces, was necessary to prevent his reforms being overturned after parliamentary elections on October 10.

The poll showed 51 percent of respondents supported the idea of the NSC, and only 17 percent were against it.

MILITARY ROLE

Some 54 percent of those polled agreed the military should have a permanent institutionalised role in running Pakistan, while just 24 percent disagreed.

The military has ruled Pakistan for more than half of its history since independence from Britain in 1947.

Musharraf's constitutional reforms have come in for heavy criticism among Pakistan's educated elite and in the English-language press, but he has been given a much smoother ride in the much more widely circulated Urdu-language press and on state radio and TV.

But in what may be a worrying finding for Musharraf and his allies in Washington, 58 percent of those polled objected to his government's actions in handing over foreign al Qaeda suspects arrested in Pakistan to the United States.

Those arrests have included one of Osama bin Laden's top lieutenants Abu Zubaydah as well as Ramzi Binalshibh, thought to have played a key role in planning the September 11 hijacked plane attacks on New York and Washington.

Between 33 and 35 percent also opposed Musharraf's crackdown on Islamic militant and sectarian organisations.

In what is widely seen as a backlash against that crackdown, there have been seven major attacks on Christian and Western targets in Pakistan in the last year, killing around 60 people.

The poll was commissioned by the British Broadcasting Corporation's Urdu-language Web site bbcurdu.com and conducted in the last 10 days of September by a local market research company Oasis International Pakistan.

News | Business | Features | Editorial | Security
Politics | World | Letters | Sports | Obituaries |

Produced by Lake House
Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
Comments and suggestions to :Web Manager