Zardari up, Nawaz down in US-backed group's poll

While President Asif Ali Zardari made some gains in his approval rating over the past six months, PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif's popularity suffered a little in the same period, according to a new poll published in The New York Times Thursday.
The survey, conducted by the Washington-based International Republican Institute (I.R.I.), a pro-democracy group financed by the U.S. government, also said that an overwhelming majority of Pakistani people continued to reject the United States as a partner to fight militancy in their country.
It said the anti-American trend persists even with the arrival of the Obama administration and the prospect of substantially increased US aid, posing problems for the U.S. efforts to tamp down Islamic militancy in this strategically vital nation.
"President Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of the slain former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and a relatively inexperienced politician, scored a 25 percent approval rating how he’s handling his job, 6 points more than in March," the Times Correspondent in Islamabad, Jane Perlez, wrote, citing the poll.
"His chief opponent, Nawaz Sharif, the leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-N, garnered a 67 percent favorable rating, down from 75 percent in March."
The findings come as Washington is poised to spend $1.5 billion in assistance for Pakistan in the coming year, a big jump in American funds intended to help strengthen the civilian government rather than the military.
The poll's release coincides with particularly strong attacks in the Pakistani media about the American Embassy’s hiring private security firms to protect American diplomats, the Times dispatch said.
"Even as the Obama administration takes pride in the new funds for Pakistan, the increased aid has been criticized in the Pakistani news media and among politicians as too little, one calling it 'peanuts'.”