Performance ratings: PML-N government doing better than its predecessor: Gallup

Gallup Pakistan on Saturday released its Annual Public Pulse Report 2014 - which reveals that the present PML-N government's Performance Ratings are a huge improvement over the PPP-Zardari-led government's a year ago, as there is an improvement of 59 percent points in the rating of overall performance of the present government.
-- Performance still gets a 'Red Card' on inflation
-- CMs: positive trend observed
-- SC records a negative 14pc net change
The PML-N government gets a Green Card (favourable views exceed unfavourable views) in overall running of the government, as 55 percent give a favourable rating. Gallup Pakistan's study is based on findings from a nationally representative poll in the Rural and Urban areas of all four provinces of Pakistan. Sample size was 2,596 adult men and women, face to face interviews, selected through probability sampling method; Error margin was kept at 3-5 percent at 95 percent confidence level. Field Work was carried out from 06 January to 13 January, 2014.
For the six Key Indicators including Economy, Pak-India Relations, Overall Foreign Policy, Terrorism control, Corruption control and Inflation control the present PML-N government received positive comparative net performance ratings. Economy recorded a positive 48 percent comparative net performance, Pak-India Relations 22 percent, Foreign Policy 33 percent, Terrorism control 31 percent, Corruption control 36 percent and Inflation control recorded a positive 20 percent net change.
The Net Performance Ratings for political leaders rated Nawaz Sharif (PML-N) at the top with a rating of a favourable 18 percent. Imran Khan (PTI) was rated as minus five percent unfavourable, Asif Ali Zardari (PPP) at - 28 percent, Altaf Hussain (MQM) - 39 percent, Mulana Fazl-ur-Rehman (JUI) at - 21 percent and Asfandyar Wali Khan (ANP) rated as - 34 percent. Ratings of Syed Munawar Hassan of JI remained unchanged.
On issues of controlling inflation, terrorism and corruption, there is an improvement over the dismal ratings of the previous government in its last year, showing an improvement of 20 percent points on the subject of inflation; 31 percent points on control of terrorism and 36 percent points on control of corruption in government.
The Gallup Pakistan Survey shows that the government performance still gets a Red Card on controlling Inflation, Terrorism and Corruption in government. But the Red Card is not as dark as the one received by PPP-led government a year ago. Despite Red Cards on specific issues, the Nawaz government gets a Green Card (favourable views exceed unfavourable views) in the overall running of the government, as 55 percent give a favourable and 40 percent give an unfavourable rating, giving a positive balance of 15 percent points. A year ago only 27 percent had given a favourable rating to the then PPP-led government while 71 percent had given a negative rating, which gave it a negative balance of 44 percent points.
Another aspect covered by the Gallup Pakistan Survey is the performance of Chief Ministers of the Four Provinces. Performance of CM Punjab was rated as 'Very Good' by 21 percent people surveyed while 28 percent rated him 'Good'. Six percent "Very Good" ratings were obtained by CM Sindh while CM KPK and CM Balochistan each got a mere four percent rating as 'Very Good'. CM Punjab topped the list by obtaining 26 percent overall net performance rating. But other Chief Ministers remained on the negative list with CM Sindh obtaining - nine percent, CM KPK - 11 percent and CM Balochistan obtaining - 14 percent net performance ratings. However, an overall positive trend was observed in the performance of the Chief Ministers as compared to performance ratings taken in 2013 during the same period when PPP government was in power.
CM Punjab improved his performance by six percent as compared to 2013 and CM Sindh improved by 18 percent. The new CMs in KPK and Balochistan improved performance ratings significantly from their predecessors as CM Balochistan got 20 percent performance rating and CM KPK was rated 16 percent better as compared to previous CMs for the same period.
Gallup Pakistan also surveyed opinions about State institutions. Net Performance ratings of Armed Forces improved up to 49 percent, Supreme Court's 27 percent whereas Parliament improved its rating to 8 percent. However, performance of other institutions including Police, Lower Courts and Political Parties got negative ratings, with Police at - 42 percent, Lower Courts at - six percent and Political Parties' performance rated at - 17 percent. Comparative net performance ratings for state institutions as compared to 2013, however, improved. Armed Forces recorded a net change of 4 percent, Police 8 percent, Lower Courts 2 percent, Parliament 30 percent and Political Parties 20 percent. It was only the Supreme Court that recorded a negative 14% net change.
Comparative Net Performance ratings, from January 2014 compared with January 2013, for Civil Society institutions were also recorded. NGOs recorded a positive 15 percent, Media three percent, Educational Institutions (Schools and Colleges) three percent and Religious Leaders recorded seven percent positive net change as compared to 2013.