Clash of two extremes

“I am not available to take my rival voters to polling stations,” said rickshaw driver Ramazan, a diehard supporter of Prime Minister Imran Khan, to the voters of PML-N during polling in the NA-133 constituency of Lahore on December 5, according to a story published in The Express Tribune. Ramazan sacrificed his income for a party he belongs to. On the other hand, the nation watched with deep dismay supporters of two major political parties distributing cash to buy votes of poor men and women in the same constituency. These two extremes co-exist. As someone had said hope lies in contradictions, provided they clash. Sadly, the former is a rarity while the latter is found in our country in abundance. A similar set of extremes clashed in Sialkot a couple of days before the NA-133 bye-election in Lahore. While hundreds of factory workers were brutally torturing Sri Lankan citizen Priyantha Diyawadanage, 48; their manager, Malik Adnan, was trying to saving the foreign guest, putting his own life at stake. The news of the lynching shook the nation. However, the good news is that Adnan is being rewarded for his courage.

The two streams — the vote buying and the lynching in the name of religion — are twins of our polity and their roots could be traced in our political history. Lynching of someone because of differences of any sort and buying free will of voters are two sides of the same coin. Killing of diversity is akin to death of nature.

Why to blame poor people for selling their votes when the elitist of the elite sell their conscience for power. Remember, the formation of Islami Jamhouri Ittihad (IJI) under the leadership of Nawaz Sharif in late eighties. The alliance was neither Islami nor Jamhouri. But our political leadership shamefully used both the sacred ideas just for the sake of power. The nation witnessed wholesale of national leaders and media houses — of which there is a very long list. To name a few — from Nawaz Sharif to Liaqat Baloch, from Mustafa Jatoi to Bizenjo, and from Mustafa Khar to Jam Sadiq were involved in laying the foundations of destruction. Read the Supreme Court Case 19/1996. It reveals how General Mirza Aslam Beg distributed Rs150 million among politicians. The money was drawn from Mehran Bank through Asad Durrani, then ISI chief.

All that was done to stop the PPP from rising to power in the 1990s. And now, the same party is at the dispensing end, doing it with a vengeance. However, the consequences of vote buying at the level of constituencies will be even more disastrous.

How a majority amongst us were led to this destructive path is no more a secret. For quite a long time, so-called champions of secularism and liberalism have been funding extremist groups across the Muslim world as well as in India during and after the colonial eras. For instance, the Indian National Congress played a crucial role in promoting extremist clerics through Jamiat-i-Ulemai Hind and Ahrars. In the 1970s Zulifkar Ali Bhutto used religion card. And during the Cold War period, military dictator Ziaul Haq, in collaboration with Western secular powers, acted against the USSR in the name of jihad. The so-called secular western powers didn’t end with the collapse of the USSR, and employed the same tactics to topple Saddam, Qadhafi and Assad — only because they were resisting the hegemony of the West. Putting the genie back into the bottle seems to be a herculean task now.

Interestingly, it now appears that the willing partners of the West and power-hungry corrupt politicians are now out to corrupt the poor voters. First, they amassed wealth and now they are using the same to perpetuate their stranglehold.

To understand their modus operandi, our organisation has been conducting group discussions in constituencies where bye-elections are taking place. Our main objective is to assess the scale of vote suppression and vote-buying. The whole exercise is so enriching. Anecdotes are worth sharing. A 70-year-old shopkeeper in Bihar Colony of Lahore said, “I have never seen vote-buying at such a huge scale during elections.” This shopkeeper is not the only one who had noted that. Everyone we talked to agreed with him. Based on our survey research, we had predicted a day before the polling that the PPP candidate was likely to obtain far higher number of votes than he had obtained during the general election 2018. After completing survey research in NA-133, our teams are now conducting a survey in PA-206 Khanewal where bye-election will take place on December 16. Local journalists we talked to believe the same tactics will be employed there too in order to, at least, increase the tally of votes — if not win the election. Reportedly, vulnerable localities have been identified for vote-buying. Most Christians in the city — like in other cities of the country — are poorer than the rest of the poor populations. Also, since Christmas is around the corner, they seem to be an easy prey as they need money for celebrating the festival.

For the ruling party, on the other hand, using state officials and announcing social protection schemes to win the voters are the tactics that work. Local PML-N leaders too are reportedly involved in vote-buying.

Implications of vote-buying are far more disastrous than one could imagine, as it undermines the rule of law and accountability. Making vote a commodity is a heinous crime. While politicians buy votes at the cost of transparency and fairness, poor people sell their votes to fulfil their immediate needs. India is a very good example in this regard. Despite an uninterrupted electoral process in the country, the successive Indian leadership has failed to improve governance. One of its reasons is that after buying votes, elected representatives don’t feel accountable to the electorate.

Political parties, in the past, would reach out to public by publicising their manifestoes. Methods like public rallies, marches, corner meetings and door-to-door canvassing were part of electoral campaigns. But over the years, almost all ills like factionalism, biradrism, suppression of voters, misuse of religion and sect, and vote-buying have become the norm. In a newer tactic, especially used in bye-elections, diehard voters are transferred from other constituencies to secure victory.

In short, everything that is considered unethical and undemocratic has become an integral part of our electoral politics. No wonder the country is sliding into a chaos and state officials appear scared of acting against powerful violent groups.

Amid all the corruption, trickery and extremism, factory manager Malik Adnan and rickshaw driver Ramazan emerge as symbols of hope. Encouraging such heroes is the need of the hour.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 11^th, 2021.

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