Quetta: A popularity poll conducted by Jang-Geo-News through Gallup Pakistan and Pulse Consultant distorts the political popularity perception by sharing misleading poll results.
Jang-Geo-News poll was conducted last month and the results were shared on the network of Jang group on Friday.
Using its small sample the poll portrayed PML-N as the most popular party in Balochistan and also showed that majority of people in Balochistan are satisfied with the performance of Balochistan Government.
Political Parties Popularity
Gallup survey shows that PML-N is the most popular party with 39% support followed by PTI 21% and ANP 7%. Pulse consultant survey showed that JUI-F is the most popular party with 22% support followed by PKMAP 18% and PMLN 16%.
There are multiple flaws in these two aforementioned surveys. Two Baloch nationalist parties namely BNP and NP have been completely ignored in popularity survey. Both of these parties share the public support in Baloch belt of Balochistan. BNP is the leading opposition party in Balochistan and all parties enjoy popularity in opposition but this party didn’t even make it into top-3 in both of the polls.
Likewise, Gallup survey shows JUI-F as most popular party and Pulse survey shows PML-N as the most popular party. Anyone with basic understanding of Balochistan can understand that the results of these surveys are distorted. In Balochistan, Nationalist parties are most popular followed by religious parties and then the individual electable Politicians. Federal parties have almost had no popularity on their own.
Furthermore, the Pulse survey states that PTI is the second most popular party of Balochistan with 21% popularity. This result is again far from the reality of Balochistan as PTI has no roots in Balochistan.
Balochistan Government Popularity
Pulse survey shows that 57% of the Balochistan residents interviewed were satisfied and 31% were dissatisfied with the performance of PML-N led government of Balochistan.
This claim again has no basis in reality because a large portion of citizens of Balochistan is not satisfied with the performance of the government. This dissatisfaction can be gauged by the protests and press statements against government performance on daily basis.
Secondly, due to the incumbency factor, it’s not possible that more than 50% people of Balochistan show satisfaction over the performance of Government of Balochistan.
General flaws in survey
Gallup poll interviewed 3,243 people and Pulse poll interviewed 3,000 People from entire Pakistan. A sample of 3,000 in no way can represent the population of 205 million.
Balochistan makes up around 6% population of Pakistan and based on that logic both of these surveys interviewed around 180 to 190 people each from Balochistan. There is no way that a mere sample of 190 people can be used to gauge the popularity of political parties and performance of provincial government in Balochistan.
Detractors of these polls maintain that these polls have been conducted to make PML-N and Nawaz Sharif look popular at a time when they are having a difficult time facing accountability cases. This claim is strengthened by the generous popularity scores received by PML-N in Balochistan in these polls.
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