Electricity, fuel and essential goods prices top public concerns: Doppler poll

Highlights:

• 66.3% say the prime minister is doing his job well.
• Only 48.6% say the country is moving in the right direction.
• 64.3% of women feel safe walking alone after dark, compared with 70.9% of men.
• 82% of Hindu respondents say they feel safe practising their religion openly, compared with 97.1% of Muslim respondents.

Electricity and fuel, along with the prices of essential goods, are the biggest concerns among Bangladeshis, while the government has received poor ratings for its handling of these issues, according to a new public opinion poll by Doppler Opinion Research.

The findings were released yesterday (18 August) at Bida's Multipurpose Hall in Dhaka at an event organised by Innovision Consulting to launch Doppler Opinion Research's latest public opinion poll.

When asked to identify the country's biggest problems without being given a list of options, 59.5% of respondents cited electricity and fuel, while 59.1% pointed to the prices of essential goods. Law and order ranked third at 32.6%, followed by employment at 30.8%.

The government received particularly negative ratings on these issues. Some 89.4% of respondents said electricity was being handled badly, while 79.6% gave a negative assessment of the government's handling of fuel and gas. Another 69.1% said the government was handling the prices of essential goods poorly.

Views on the government's handling of these issues were broadly similar across the country's eight divisions and among respondents from different income and education groups.

Of the seven issues examined in the survey, education was the only one to receive a favourable assessment, with 70.6% saying the government was handling it well.

PM gets stronger approval than government

The Doppler Approval Rating Survey 2026, the research firm's first such survey, found that 66.3% of adults believed the prime minister was doing his job well, while 21.6% said he was doing badly. Another 12.1% either had no opinion or declined to answer.

The prime minister's approval remained relatively consistent across age, gender, education and income groups, ranging from 61.7% to 70.3%. It was also above 62% in all eight divisions.

The prime minister received favourable ratings even among supporters of other political parties. Some 65.5% of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami supporters, 65.8% of Jatiya Nagorik Party supporters and 52.5% of Awami League supporters said he was doing his job well.

By comparison, 54.5% rated the government positively and 32.9% negatively.

Despite the relatively strong approval of the prime minister and government, only 48.6% of respondents said the country was moving in the right direction.

The survey also found that people remained hopeful about the future, although many felt their economic situation had deteriorated.

Women, Hindu respondents report lower sense of safety

The survey found a gap between men and women in perceptions of personal safety. Some 64.3% of women said they felt safe walking alone in their area after dark, compared with 70.9% of men.

Overall, 95.2% said they felt safe practising their religion openly. The figure was 97.1% among Muslim respondents and 82% among Hindu respondents.

Political leaders' ratings

Among the political leaders assessed in the survey, 47.7% rated the Jamaat ameer positively, while 39.8% gave a favourable rating to the founding convener of the NCP.

Some 20.2% gave the Jamaat leader a negative rating, compared with 23% for the NCP founding convener.

However, 32.1% said they did not know enough about the Jamaat leader to assess his performance, while 37.2% said the same about the NCP leader.

Families report mixed economic outlook

Some 46.5% of respondents said their families were worse off than a year ago, while 17.5% said they were better off.

Looking ahead, 38.1% expected their families to be better off over the next 12 months, while 24.3% expected them to be worse off.

Regarding the country as a whole, 48.4% said they were more hopeful than a year ago, while 39% were less hopeful. Only 6.2% said their level of hope had not changed.

Survey methodology

The survey used Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) and drew 10,413 respondents from Innovision Consulting's People's Election Pulse Survey (PEPS) Round 2, conducted in September 2025.

Of those contacted, 3,443 completed the survey, giving a response rate of 33.1%.

The respondents represented 489 wards and villages across all 64 districts, and the findings were weighted against 2022 census data.

Doppler Opinion Research said the survey was designed, funded and released independently of any political party, ministry or campaign.