Pakistanis Give New Civilian Leadership Low Marks So Far

Only 13% confident Zardari will improve Pakistanis' lot

• Pakistan
• Governance
• Leadership
• Asia

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Largely considered untested when elected, Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari has been engulfed by crisis since he took office a few months ago. A Gallup Poll of Pakistan in October, before the latest crisis with India, revealed the new leader had failed, as of that point, to earn more support than his predecessor: Zardari's 19% job approval rating was on par with the 17% approval that Pakistanis gave an unpopular President Pervez Musharraf in June.

Zardari's election in September signaled Pakistan's complete return to civilian rule after nearly a decade under military control. And although the widower of slain Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto entered office with a tarnished reputation and little experience, many Pakistanis' hopes were pinned to Zardari's ability to bring political and economic stability to the nation and successfully return it to democracy.

When Gallup polled Pakistanis a month later, they were still mired in the country's worst economic crisis in a decade and had just suffered one of the worst terrorist attacks on their own soil. Fifteen percent of the population hadn't formulated an opinion about his leadership yet, but few approved of the job their new president was doing or expressed confidence in his abilities. Only 13% of Pakistanis said they were confident Zardari would be able to improve the lot of his people, while 62% said they were not.

Outside Sindh province, a support base for the ruling Pakistan People's Party and Zardari's birthplace, the new president has fewer admirers. While 39% of Sindh residents approved of Zardari's leadership, his approval was 20% in Baluchistan, 12% in Punjab, and just 7% in North West Frontier Province (NWFP). Twenty-nine percent in Sindh said they were confident he can better Pakistanis' lot, while 9% in Baluchistan, 8% in Punjab, and 2% in NWFP said this.

Wrong Direction

One challenge for Zardari may be that a majority of Pakistanis still believe, as they did in June, that their country's leadership is taking their nation in the wrong direction. Two-thirds of residents said in October that the leadership of Pakistan was taking the country in the wrong direction, while just 10% said it was leading it in the right direction.

While perhaps waxing nostalgic for better economic times under Musharraf, a sizable 28% of Pakistanis reflected in October that Musharraf had led the country in the right direction. However, the plurality of Pakistanis (45%) said Musharraf led Pakistan in the wrong direction.