A public opinion survey conducted in July 2023 shows that the military has the highest approval rating of 88 percent, followed by the media and courts with 56 percent approval rating each. Politicians in general have an approval rating of 39 percent, parliament 47 percent, Election Commission 42 percent, and police 54 percent.
The survey shows that the military is most popular in North Punjab and least in Central and West Punjab. Karachi appears to be still overwhelmingly in support of the PTI. PMLN is stronger in central Punjab than other areas of the province. Lower education respondents are more inclined towards PMLN as opposed to relatively better educated.
Among politicians, the positive approval rating of Imran Khan is the highest at 60 percent followed by Saad Rizvi and Pervaiz Elahi 38 percent each, Shah Mehmood Qureshi 37 percent, Nawaz Sharif 36 percent, Shehbaz Sharif 35 percent, Maryam Nawaz 30 percent, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi 28 percent and others.
The PTI government received the highest positive approval rating (64 percent) for its economic performance. Among political parties, 38 percent of respondents strongly favour PTI, 16 percent strongly like PMLN, 10 percent strongly like PPP, 15 percent strongly like TLP, 9 percent strongly liked JI, 6 percent strongly like MQMP.
Twice as many would vote for PTI if elections happened next week than those who would vote for PMLN. Nearly 2 in 5 (37%) respondents say they would vote for PTI if Imran Khan is not the president of the party. Nearly half of PTI voters say they would still vote for PTI if Imran Khan is not the president of the party. If PTI does not stand in the election, nearly a quarter of respondents would vote for PML-N.
The survey also found that 32 percent of respondents said the military should have a large role in politics, 32 percent approved of some role whereas 31 percent insisted the military should have no role at all. 5 percent did not respond to this question.
