Election 2018: Political Attitudes Survey

As Pakistan nears election year, it is the right time to begin tracking the political attitudes of voters on critical issues that are likely to shape the general election in 2018. The best way to do this is to hear directly from voters about what they think. The Political Economy Group at the Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives (IDEAS) is planning a series of political attitude surveys that aim to ascertain which issues matter to voters, which political campaign messages are resonating with them and their support for different political parties, candidates and leaders.

What value does our survey add to the information provided by existing surveys and political commentary? Standard surveys in Pakistan give a picture of how a sample of national or provincial voters is thinking and not how voters are thinking in specific constituencies. This is because their sample is representative at the national and provincial levels and not at the constituency level. However, constituency contests make or break elections and hence it is important to read the pulse at the level of individual constituencies. The IDEAS political attitudes survey will provide information on how voters are thinking in constituencies of interest.

The IDEAS political attitudes survey is non-partisan and was devised with the input of reputable political economists associated with recognized institutions. We are committed to providing expertise that advances understanding of the Pakistani electorate to any interested party, as part of our broad commitment to public engagement and impact. To ensure transparency the last section of this brief provides details on the sampling methodology and we report the margin of error for each result.