Voter turnout in the 2012 US elections was higher than 2008, said Jeffrey Bakken, the acting US consul general, on Wednesday. Bakken said it was necessary for Pakistanis to exercise their right to vote in the upcoming elections.
He was speaking at an event at Avari Hotel organised by the US Consulate General as results of the US elections poured in.
Bakken, the USAID Punjab mission director, said that he did not see a significant change in America’s foreign policy no matter who won.
Speaking about the upcoming elections in Pakistan, he said he was very happy to see the electoral process unfold in the country. “This will be the first transition from an elected government to another and that is a positive news for the people of Pakistan,” he said. Bakken urged Pakistanis to vote in the upcoming elections.
PPP’s secretary general Jahangir Badr, commenting on Pakistan-US relations, said that the “relations were between two countries, not between individuals”. Badr said the government would not compromise on the sovereignty of the country, “We are not US slaves. We only serve the people of this country,” he added. The secretary general said that the PPP government was committed to free and fair elections.
After President Barrack Obama was re-elected, Badr said, “Whoever wins the people’s mandate must be respected.”
US election event
A mock election was also held at the event, which was swept by President Obama who got 97 votes as compared to 40 votes for the Republican candidate Mitt Romney.
The US Consulate General had also arranged a social media table where people could share their views about the elections and the results. A trivia contest on presidential history and mock presidential debates were also held.
Earlier, students of the English Access Micro-scholarship Programme, an after-school English language programme for under privileged children (14 to 18), had participated in the mock presidential debates. A tenth grader Mahnoor Sarfaraz and an eleventh grader Faraz Zareen represented Barack Obama and Mitt Romney respectively.
Press attaché Lydia Barraza said the aim was to share US’s democratic process with the people of Lahore.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 8th, 2012.
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Voting to elect someone who will not be able to represent the electors is a futile exercise. Throughout the world people go out to elect those, who the people think will represent them but see that in the end, they do not get representation. Instead Mafiosis get representation. So why is it so? Very simple to understand. The Mafiosis are organised to take those elected by us, the people, their hostage. True. We the people, have not organised our selves into one giant Mafia. A Mafia of the people, by the people, for the people in control of the people. So for as long as we, the people do not organise our own Mafia, to keep those elected by us, in our control, going out and electing anyone will remain a futile exercise for us the people.