The recent election in Pakistan represented a particularly historic event in the annals of recent Pakistani political life: the democratic transition from one elected government to another. Like all the previous elections in the country, this election has led to certain doubts around transparency, and results in some constituencies are expected to be re-evaluated by the Election Commission of Pakistan. Nonetheless, one of the most interesting facets of the election was the overwhelming participation of the Pakistani public in the democratic process of their country, despite the serious threats from a raft of extremist groups who openly declared a war against democracy, while attacking the political parties’ candidates and terrorising local people into to not casting their votes.
According to the International Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), out of around 190 million of population, 86,189,802 people were registered voters. The Election Commission of Pakistan has confirmed that voter turnout has been around 60% - a significant increase on the result in the previous election in 2008, which was only 44.55%. This enthusiastic electoral participation suggests that the majority of the people of Pakistan still believe that democracy is the only solution to the issues they are facing right now, and sharply contradicts the many gloomy reports and surveys suggesting that majority in Pakistan are pessimistic, or lost hope in the democratic system of the country. This is, therefore, a very discouraging message indeed for all the anti-democratic forces working to undermine Pakistan’s current political system.
The most significant lesson to learn from the present election is that the people of Pakistan are, by and large, still pro-democracy. This fact is, in itself, somewhat surprising; the last five years of democratic government have not been a glowing example of democratic success and have disappointed a lot of the ordinary people of Pakistan, who were expecting a lot from the civilian government after a long dictatorial regime. Corruption and bad governance are serious problems for Pakistan at present, and have permeated throughout Pakistani political life to its highest levels. This has, unsurprisingly, disheartened many, and paved way for many anti-democratic forces to convince people that perhaps democracy could never work in Pakistan, or that it is a foreign, unworkable ideal. It was also revealed in a recent survey by the British Council that ‘Pakistan’s burgeoning population of young people is highly conservative, overwhelmingly pessimistic about the future and has a very low opinion of democracy’1 – hardly an encouraging prospect for the future of Pakistan as a democratic, pluralistic state. Nonetheless, a huge number of young people, from all over the country, not only participated in the electoral process, but are still protesting to ensure the transparency of the electoral process in certain places. Various surveys suggest that around 30% of the voters were under the age of 30, and that vast numbers of young people were casting their first ever vote in this election. This political participation on the part of the young people of Pakistan suggest that they still believe in the democratic norms and values in their society, and also that – even with the flawed democratic governments in the past, young people are still interested in the revival and sustainability of democracy in Pakistan. If anything, the recent post-election protests surrounding recounts and the transparency of the electoral protests suggest that enthusiasm for democracy is still strong – people are clearly willing to take to the streets in order to defend it!
The overwhelming participation of youth in the present election is a particularly positive sign of the strengthening democratic culture in Pakistan. Today, young people across Pakistan are much more politically aware than their parents were, with a number of young people actually standing for elected positions. This is a new phenomenon in Pakistan, and something that suggests that - in spite of the grave economic and security challenges that Pakistan is facing at the moment - the society is actually going in the right direction. The rise of democracy is central to the ongoing process of building the Pakistani nation. Indeed, this focus on the role of young people across the country in forging Pakistani political identity was prefigured decades ago, by none other than the founder of Pakistan (and our blog’s favourite source of quotes!), Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah:
“We need our youth to be politically aware and sensitized towards the Nation building. They are the future and the future needs to be bright for Pakistan.”
Rehman Anwer
1 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/02/pakistan-young-voters-democracy-despair
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