Adil Najam
Back on August 18, 2008 – right before Gen. Pervez Musharraf announced his resignation – we conducted an ATP Poll asking our readers what Pakistan would look like after Musharraf. Now, two months after the event, it seems like a good time to repeat the question. So, here is our new ATP Poll. Do tell us what you think? We have tried to match the wording of the questions to those asked last time so that one can have better comparison.
The results of our previous poll on the subject, were interesting, but not surprising.
Partisans on each side dominated the discussion, and the numbers (these are respresentative of no greater truth than the readership of this blog and the passions of those on any side). Around a third of the respondents (34 percent) felt that things would generally become better; somewhat more (42 percent) felt things would generally get worse; some 22 percent felt that only faces will change and no other real change would materialize.
So, now that we have two months under our belt, what can we say? Or, and maybe, it is still too early to say anything? If so, we can always do this again in a few months and see how and if opinions change.
One measure of how rapidly investor and creditor confidence in Pakistan has eroded is by the value of the Pakistani sovereign debt’s credit default swaps (CDS) which indicates the risk of default. In February the Pakistan debt CDS traded at about 147 basis points, meaning it took $147,000 per year to insure $10m debt to Pakistan for 5 years. Now, these CDS are trading at 950 basis points, which means it takes $950,000 per year to ensure $10m debt to Pakistan for 5 years. Pakistan’s sovereign debt is now rated as the riskiest in the world.
I invite you to read: http://www.riazhaq.com/2008/10/credit-markets-expe cting-pakistan.html
Here is my analysis on this poll:
1. Last time 30% said ‘everthing will not be perfect but things will improve’ but only 22% agreed to it now. That is a clear indication that people had more hopes before this government came then now. (shift of 8%)
2. In Last pool only 12 percent in last pool said ‘Hell won’t break loose, but things will deteriorate.’ but now 16% are sayng that things have deterioted. (shift of 4%)
3. More people believe now that ‘Once he left, everything became much much worse’ (shift of 1%)
4. More people believe now that ‘Only the faces changed’ Take the issues why Musharaf had to go; Judges and policy on war on terror. Did anything change on that? NO!. take the rest of the governing @ law and order, jobs, development; has anything improved? No!, things have got worse. (shift: 2%).
5. Only one percent more believe that ‘Since he left, everything has become much better.’ (shift: -1%)
Based on shift 14% more people believe now that we were better of with Musharaf’s that today’s regime
Adile @ ‘it is probably too early to say too much’, I believe it is already late but if we still do not say anything, it will be too late.
Janab Adil Najam Sahib,
Being an eternal optimist myself, this is the first time in the last 17 years or so since I came back from the USA to Pakistan and seeing the ups and downs of the 2 BB, 2 Nawaz Sharif and 1 Mush era, for the first time in my life I feel depressed on the state of our nation. Hope in a crises comes from the credibility and optimism of the top leadership which unfortunately is missing in the current regime. You talk ideally about politics while residing in Massachusetts, maybe its time you should come back to Pakistan and actually see what is the situation on the ground. Again, I would like to hope against hope that things may become better in the near term, but the fact of the matter is that they will not for some time to come. And this remains a unanimous opinion throughout all levels of the Pakistani society.
So while you idealize that your next poll may show an improved situation, we feel that it would be quite useless because majority in Pakistan may not have the electricity to log on and respond to it.
Very well said, Adil Sahib.
I do not like Zardari or this government, but I wish and pray that things will improve under them. Not because I like them but because I love Paksitan!
This poll has now been closed after a little more than 3 days online.
readers can themselves analyze the results since the post above has the results of the original poll (conducted right before and as Gen. Musharraf resigned) and this one, conducted some two months later.
The results are different but my own immediate thought is that they are LESS different than one might have expected from the comments. While much more people voted in the original poll, the proportion of votes at the two extremes on the questions remain largely the same. The proportion of those who think/thought that only faces change and no real change happens is also largely unchanged (about a quarter of those who voted). The general sentiment shift, as evidenced by the second and fourth question, is more towards deterioration; the shift is clearly there but not drastic in numbers.
Overall, as I had myself indicated in the original post and as others have suggested it is probably too early to say too much on this. We will wait and maybe do another post after some time. Meanwhile, as Pakistanis and irrespective of what our feeling may be for or against the current or former government I hope that we are hoping and praying that whenever the next poll is conducted many many more will feel confident enough to say that things have improved. After all, whatever our politics we all want things in Pakistan to improve.