Session 13- Vote for the individual or the party?

I would like to comment on the argument, which was conducted in class about whether the public of Pakistan votes for the individual standing or the party. I feel there is no one view regarding this debate, but rather it depends on the situation and it depends on the influence of the person in the specific area, which a lot of people don’t really consider when they look at voting patterns.

There are some influential people who get votes regardless of whether they stand via a party or whether they stand independently. People like Shah Mehmood Qureshi who left PPP to join PTI was confident enough to secure his consistency as he is the “gaddi nasheen” and has a huge following in his hometown area of Multan. Similarly. Jamshed Dasti resigned from PPP and stood independently and still ended up winning his seat due to his immense popularity and influence in the area. Another example can be of Nabeel Gabol who left PPP for MQM yet he won a landslide victory due to his prominence. This shows that people who are voting mostly considered the person himself and not the party he was standing for. Some cases were such, that in rural Sindh, people were voting for Benazir Bhutto even after she had passed away, in honor of her memory.

On the other hand, there are also people who vote for the party and not for the person who is standing. I witnessed this during the previous elections held. In my consistency, there was a large voter turn out and barely anyone had the idea as to who was standing up for the provincial assembly. At that time the fervor for PTI was such that there were only slogans being shouted asking people to stamp on the bat, regardless whether they knew the candidate or not. It was all about voting for the party ideology at that moment.

Thus we can see that the Pakistani population is such, that people either vote for the person standing or at times they vote for a party and its ideology. It’s a very perplexing condition and a question which this raises in my mind is that, does this hinder the so called little democracy left in Pakistan even more?