(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Many people in Pakistan think the government should negotiate a peace deal with its different enemies, according to a poll by Terror Free Tomorrow. 58 per cent of respondents think the administration should negotiate with Pakistani Taliban fighters, while at least 48 per cent think it should also talk to Arab and Uzbek al-Qaeda fighters and Afghan Taliban fighters.

In October 1999, Pervez Musharraf led a military coup to depose then Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif. Two years later, Musharraf assumed the presidency. An April 2002 referendum—where less than 30 per cent of eligible voters participated—extended his term until October 2007.

In October 2007, Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians (PPPP) leader and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto—who had lived in exile for a decade—returned to Pakistan. As her caravan travelled through Karachi, two massive suicide bombings killed more than 140 people, and injured 450 more. Bhutto—who was not hurt—accused political foes of planning to kill her.

In December 2007, Bhutto was assassinated after an election rally in Rawalpindi. Bhutto was to take part in a parliamentary election originally scheduled for Jan. 8, but eventually postponed until Feb. 18. Final results from the February election gave Yousaf Raza Gilani’s PPPP 120 seats, followed by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz Sharif (PML-N) with 90 mandates, and the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid-e-Azam (PML-Q) with 51 seats.

After the election, Bhutto’s widower and new PPPP leader Asif Ali Zardari and PML-N leader and former prime minister Anwaz Sharif agreed to form a coalition government. On Mar. 22, Raza—a former speaker of the National Assembly and former federal minister—was approved as prime minister.

On Jun. 25, Richard Boucher, the United States assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs, commented on Pakistan’s new guidelines to deal with militants in its Federally Administered Tribal Areas and North West Frontier Province, saying, "Certainly the approach of saying, ‘We will work with the tribes to kick out the militants,’ is a better approach than going directly to negotiate with the militants. That seems to be the approach they are adopting, not one that they have implemented successfully yet."

Polling Data

Should the Pakistani government negotiate with or continue to fight...

Source: Terror Free Tomorrow
Methodology: Face-to-face interviews with 1,306 Pakistani adults, conducted from May 25 to Jun. 1, 2008. Margin of error is 3 per cent.

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