A few months back, a huge controversy erupted all around the world after the third largest audit firm was hacked and its data was leaked online by an international group of journalists.
That incident was the Panama Papers, detailing how many of the world’s rich elite stashed away their money in other countries for tax avoidance purposes.
The pressures faced by Nawaz Sharif amplified his heart troubles and he went to UK to get his surgery done, all this at the height of the Panama leaks crisis. Its no wonder then that a recent poll by Gallup has 38% of Pakistanis agreeing that that was just an excuse to avoid Panama leaks.
The PM faced attacks from political opponents, the general public and many more, seeing as how his administration was about enhancing the tax-paying base in Pakistan while his children were doing the opposite.
The Gallup Poll, as part of Gilani Research Foundation Survey, took a ‘nationally representative sample of men and women from across the four provinces’, asking them this basic question:
Some people claim that the Prime Minister’s operation is just an excuse to divert attention from the Panama Leaks scandal. Others believe he is genuinely suffering from ill-health. What is your opinion on this?”
Here is how the people responded:
For a Third World country like Pakistan, the revelation that some of the children of Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had millions of dollars stashed away abroad, was met with public anger and derision. Many politicians and analysts predicted that the Panama Leaks crisis could prove damaging for the Prime Minister’s rule.
But will this translate into results at the next general elections in 2018? Only time will tell.
via Gallup