Slogans of democracy, promises of justice, and the assurance
of change, come election season in Pakistan and political parties promise utopia.
If the populace votes in its favor, the party promises that it will “change the
public’s life”. Political mobilization reaches its zenith with leaders
employing emotionally charged speeches laced with hyperbole, convincing the
public that this time it will be different. This facade however, quickly
crumbles as soon as the party in question comes to power. Interest articulation
then becomes restricted to the motives of a few select elite who hold the strings
of the party in their hands. The interest groups that were “so relevant” prior
to the electoral process are now peripheral. We have seen a repetitive cycle
this vicious process, yet we still continue to vote for the same leaders .So where
do parties in Pakistan draw their power bases from and how do they use them to win
the political power game?
An analysis of the ground realities at hand imply that major
parties in Pakistan such as the PPP and the PML-N derive their power from
traditional partisan supporters. The populace in rural areas and the working
class in urban areas vote for certain parties just because they belong to a
particular area, ethnicity or interest group which supposedly represents them
instead of considering ideology. The elite also tend to vote in favor of parties
that best represent their vested interests or those that they have
traditionally voted for.
It can also be argued that the general public votes for
certain parties just because they represent the legacy of a charismatic leader
regardless of whether the party still complies with said leader’s initial
ideology. A prime example of this s many voters in Pakistan voting for the PPP
because it supposedly symbolizes the ideology of the magnetic leader Zulfiqar
Ali Bhutto.
A realistic overview also tends to reveal that apart from
these factors, the economic constraints that a majority of the people in
Pakistan face may lead them to vote for certain parties to get temporary gains in
the form of bribes .The underprivileged can also vote under external pressures
imposed by economic constraints i.e. a peasant’s landlord forcing him to vote
for a party.
So until these biases are removed through economic empowerment
as well as political education, political parties will continue to win the power
game and we, the public, will continue to loose.
1 comment:
Adding on to your point regarding the general populace of a particular area voting for the party whose members belong to that area, I personally encountered this in Multan. Multan has a huge class gap with the rich making up a very small percentage (probably 2 or 3%) of the total population while a third of it falls below the poverty line. I lived in 'Cantt' which wasn't very big considering it took us 5 mins to get from one end to another on a car. That's where the rich also lived. The rest of the 'city', which is huge, was overcrowded with people who could barely afford food. These people were uneducated and they literally had no political views or opinions of their own. They supported one person and one person only (his name I can't remember or find on Google) only because he belonged to Multan and so his party always won over there (until recently because he retired or so I've heard).
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