Should you vote?

On the 25^th of July the queues will be long and patience may not seem a virtue. The familiar khaki uniformed men will secure the delivery of the ballot papers and Rangers will be seen sauntering with a purpose here and there. It’s a day that would cost the country billions of rupees or more. It would cost the voters their fate for the next 5 years or less. Every step inched closer to the polling station should be a reminder of the power of an ordinary individual. Every vote is a whisper of a vision. And that will turn the ordinary into the extraordinary.

In the words of the 36^th US president, Lyndon B Johnson, “The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men.”

We should only dare to hope for a booming just future, if we exercise that power to vote. Of course, when the voters are jaded with the tunnel vision of politicians who have been tried and failed repeatedly, when the voter is nonchalant and devoid of hope, it is a task and a half to instill aspiration, something the PTI managed to do in 2013. It was Imran Khan’s moment of crowning glory when he galvanised the first time voters 5 years ago.



According to the Election Commission of Pakistan, the 2013 elections had the largest number of registered voters. The overall voter turnout was recorded at 55.2 per cent. This was a significantly higher turnout than the elections since the 80s. Five years later, Imran Khan is now educating the masses on corruption and what it means for them when wealth is taken out of the country and kept in foreign accounts. A layman is being told how the increasing cost of bread and eggs he has to pay correlates with corruption by the wealthy and the dollar hike. He is desperate to win and in that desperation he is looking for electoral gain with the masses through frequent references to religion made in his rallies and addresses, alongside some brazen declarations.

In fact there is a transparent divide among the voters over the issue of religion, blasphemy laws and minority rights. Even more, it would be a Herculean task for the newly-elected leadership to wriggle its way out among the factions that lie on the two opposite yet extreme ends of the matter. Nevertheless, some far-right and religious groups in Pakistan have emerged to be significant enough to vibrate the structures of the government.

Imran Khan’s allegiance and support to and from religious groups has been evident and may cost him a valuable number of his party’s supporters who were seen regularly in his rallies. This was back in the days of the party’s reformation in 2013 where many of his supporters were classified as the educated-liberal masses.

Imran Khan unceasingly affirms that corruption is like a plague in Pakistan. It truly is spreading like an infectious disease causing serious damage to the people of this country. The morale is low and the pockets are empty. With the accountability court having sentenced Nawaz Sharif to 10 years in prison, and the Supreme Court summoning Asif Ali Zardari and his sister Faryal Talpur in a case related to billions in a money laundering scam, a breeze of accountability is approaching. One can hope it escalates into a substantial change for the country and gear it to an, honest, honourable and accountable direction. But to hope to make our vision count, we must let our vote count.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 19^th, 2018.

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