An Avenger or a Reluctant Fundamentalist: What kind of voter are you?

Born and raised in the age of Cartoon Network, the avengers are set to make this country a better place.

Marvi Bikak May 05, 2013
Less than a week is left for the elections. Although this may seem too good to be true, but this grand event in our history is actually happening! Voting is our duty and is imperative but the question arises, who will I vote for?

Pondering long over this conundrum, I drew a picture of how to categorise the average voter below:

The reluctant fundamentalist:

Here’s the simple man, who can’t stand the idea of multiple components of parliamentary democracy. Though his knowledge of the religion may be poor, his grasp on the principles of fiqh and Shariah may be very minimal, he is ready to follow anyone who claims to be the righteous and in the blessed path towards the promised glory hence very easy to be convinced with some strong words of God. This category of individuals is most likely to either cast their vote of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam–Fazl (JUI-F)  or will simply cast no vote because democracy is a conspiracy of the ‘fair skinned’ upon us.

The wronged:

Filled with nationalistic pride, here’s a group of individuals who feel they have always been wronged by every regime and can never be satisfied. Determined to set things right, they’ll vote for parties keeping their nationalistic interests. They see parties like Balochistan National Party (BNP)/ Awami National Party (ANP) as their path towards their promised destiny.

The nostalgic:

These individuals are generally older than 40, have seen the country’s major eras although mostly through an array of generals. They have seen the dynamo of real change turn once; this experience had been short lived but has impacted them tremendously. Another tendency of these individuals is to be captivated by legacies and absorbed perpetually in tragedies with further glancing into what the picture looks like in present. Nostalgic people can never get over Bhutto and they will always vote for Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).

The tunnel visionaries:

They are the modern conformists who are educated, have rational reasoning yet choose to conform to cultural norms rather than trying a new ideology. These individuals envision phenomenal progress in the country if their party wins. Every time they argue about the capability of their party they quote all the development that has happened in their vicinity (mainly restricted to one province).

Ardently, they blame constant interruption of the military as a hurdle in their party pathway- otherwise today Pakistan would have been Sweden! Tunnel visionary fail to see anything beyond the highways because that’s what tunnel vision does, it keeps a horse focused on the road. Oblivious to the bigger picture of course, they conveniently ignore foreign policy and sectarian issues. These individuals will vote for Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N.)

The avengers:

Born and raised in the age of Cartoon Network and later the internet, the avengers are set to make this country a better place. With their new found vigour, their talent in social media and the ability to argue tenaciously, all they need is a hero. Like a baby, avengers demand change! With their lack of reading on social sciences and politics, they try filling the gap of their knowledge by the material available on the internet in the form of blogs, fan pages and memes.

The average avenger is an adventure loving dreamer, mostly stays optimistic about the future and in this optimism, ignores most technical aspects of politics. Mesmerised by the power of hero personality cult, the avengers don’t exactly know what their revolution will look like, but are sure it will be as bad as a natural disaster.

The avengers will vote for Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI).

The privileged:

These are the blessed individuals who either have family in bureaucracy, military or will be technocratic. They think they are the real citizens, with their foreign degrees, their good table manners and command of language. Often these individuals look at the country as a big mess simply because the average population failed to evolve as well as they have managed to. Fond of playing the blame game, they’ll find everyone possible to be blamed for the short comings of their party even though their party has been in power for a good decade or more.

They strongly believe in a democracy system where only the educated and that too the highly educated has the right to vote. These politically, morally and existentially aware, elite classes of individuals will vote for Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), All Pakistan Muslim League (APML) or Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid’s (PML-Q).

With these basic categories, one thing can be said for sure, these elections will surely be very interesting. It’s hard to determine which category is going to dominate as there is an overlap in these categories as well which skews general prediction. Now it’s time I decide which category I fall in!
WRITTEN BY:
Marvi Bikak A recent graduate from The Aga Khan University who loves political satire.
The views expressed by the writer and the reader comments do not necassarily reflect the views and policies of the Express Tribune.

COMMENTS (39)

Jenny Bikak | 10 years ago | Reply cousin proud of you... :)
Asjad | 10 years ago | Reply Interesting but not quite accurate in my opinion.
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