A complicated issue is, in fact, people’s abilities to make decisions and choose the right leader for a better future
FRANCE: People in Pakistan have protested against the unfair electrical process in many areas of the country, with the view that rigging is the main problem. A deeper and more complicated issue is, in fact, people’s abilities to make decisions and choose the right leader (or inability thereof) for a better future. Although factors such as ‘Bhutto-ism’, PML-N support, religious beliefs and money do determine electoral choices, limited information, awareness and knowledge are also major driving factors of the decisions people take.
Although voting is considered a basic right in a democracy, what happens when misinformed decisions result in a regime in which people lose these very rights? Just take a look at the politics of Sindh. It is not always true that people with greater abilities influence the environment.
Participation plays a vital role in decision-making and if the less-able are greater in number and involved in decision-making, they can influence outcomes. Many of the corrupt politicians in Sindh are able to reach parliament because they have a vote bank consisting of people who live on their agricultural lands. People in the rural areas are not literate enough to make the right decisions and they are easily influenced by allegiances and perceived loyalties, while on the other hand, people with a good education are fewer and their participation in elections is always ineffectual. After coming to power, the same corrupt politicians do not work towards educating the population and this turns into a vicious cycle. Just because a group of people are not able to make right decision in terms of political leadership, many others also suffer as a result.
In my opinion, worse than the rigging in elections, is the act of restricting people from having access to accurate, unbiased information. In fact, the elections are invisibly controlled by a handful of influential groups. This is one of the major causes that corruption is uncontrollable in Pakistan. When a politician is certain that whatever he does, in the end he/she will be re-elected, then why would he/she be driven to do what is right?
The population of Sindh is majorly influenced by political allegiances to dynastic politics and almost every election has the same result. The province is dreadfully backward, while corruption is high. The situation in Sindh, as well as in Balochistan, is linked to the people’s lack of awareness. The Pakistan Economic Survey 2014-15 revealed that the literacy rate has gone down by 2 per cent in 2013-14, as compared to the previous year, when it was 60 per cent. According to the report, the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) and Punjab governments managed to improve their literacy ratios. Sindh and Balochistan could not even maintain their previous rates. Sindh witnessed the worst scenario, as the literacy rate dropped by 4 per cent in the province, to 56 per cent.
In Balochistan, the rate fell by 1 per cent to 43 per cent.
The question of the standard of education in Sindh has been the same old story for the past two decades and is a different debate altogether.
I agree that participation is an important tool of sustainable development. But what good is this if people are not able to use their right of participation in a positive way? Therefore, my argument is that the first step in development should be to increase the awareness and knowledge of the population through education and then move forward to achieve other goals with public consultation.
Sajad Hussain
Published in The Express Tribune, March 29th, 2016.
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