Instead of facing the facts, Musharraf’s spokesman has turned around and made the absurd argument that a poll of a few thousand people cannot represent the views of 160 million Pakistanis. Until a year ago, the IRI polls showed Musharraf as quite popular in the country and at that time none of his supporters questioned the validity of opinion polling methodology.

The unavoidable truth is that Musharraf’s political support in Pakistan has almost evaporated. Even after the official withdrawal of the state of emergency, Pakistan’s ruler is virtually ruling by the strength of the state, not on the basis of his personal credibility.

There is bad news even for Pakistan’s permanent institutions of state in the latest IRI poll. The Pakistan Army has long been the most respected institution in the country and it enjoyed a favourable rating of 80 per cent in IRI’s polls over the last several years. In the most recent polls, the army’s rating first dropped 10 points to 70 per cent and now stands at 55 per cent — a further slippage of 15 percentage points.

The media and the judiciary, from whom Musharraf says he is now trying to save Pakistan, are now the most favourably rated institutions in the country. The media’s 78 per cent approval shows how out of touch Musharraf and his sycophants are with the current reality of Pakistan.

According to the IRI, “The drop in the Army’s prestige is likely due to the unpopularity of Musharraf. When Pakistanis were asked if the performance of Musharraf affected their opinion of the Army, 31 per cent said that they now had a higher opinion due to his actions and 20 per cent said that their opinion had not changed, while a plurality of 41 per cent said that Musharraf’s performance caused them to now have a lower opinion of the Army.”

... contd.