Wooing the youth: Young blood will drive the age of progress in Pakistan, say leaders

Members of political parties try to connect with the youth at an interactive session.

KARACHI:

They might not have a college degree in their hands yet, May 11 might be their first tryst with the democratic process, but this matters little. What counts is that they are armed with the power to vote. And this makes them the game changers.

Political parties have woken up to this fact and are now trying to reel in the massive 16 million young people between the ages of 18 and 25 with rhetoric liberally peppered with buzzwords such as ‘change’, ‘transformation’ and ‘new era’.

On Friday, political parties got yet another chance to connect with the youth through an interactive session hosted jointly by The Express Tribune and the British Council at Institute of Business Administration (IBA).

In a discussion moderated by Shahzeb Khanzada, the host of Express News show ‘To the Point’, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) Asad Umar set the tone as he told the audience that the party was the first to formulate a comprehensive youth empowerment policy. “The party decided to allot 25 per cent of the seats to the youth and fulfilled its commitment,” he said. Umar added that PTI had set an example for other parties to follow as it had awarded young people tickets to contest the upcoming elections without letting familial ties influence the decisions.

Umar said PTI’s focus was now was on reviving the industrial sector and restoring investors’ confidence to jumpstart the economy. This would go hand-in-hand with the creation of 10 million jobs for the youth through skill development programmes, he said.



“You can stay at home if you feel the country is heading in the right direction,” Umar said. “But if you feel otherwise then the ultimate power that you have is to bring the change through your vote.”

Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) leader Hafiz Naeemur Rehman said that according to a recent British Council survey, around 94 per cent of the youth thought the country was heading in the wrong direction. The survey report also stated that a majority of the youth felt that an Islamic system was the solution to the country’s problems, he said. “The youth is the ray of hope for Pakistan as well as the Muslim world.” The JI leader added that in its manifesto, his party had stated that it would strive to abolish feudal elites’ hegemony over politics. “All of the endowments of the British imperialist regime in pre-partition India need to be taken away through legislation and used to bridge the divide between the urban and rural areas,” he said.

Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) deputy convener Farooq Sattar concurred. He said that it was young people, under Quaid-e-Azam’s leadership, who took up the responsibility to bring about a change during the Pakistan Movement.

“The creation of Pakistan was a challenge back in 1947. The challenge for us in 2013 is to save the country and lead it to the path of prosperity,” said Sattar. “The youth’s participation is crucial to achieve this and they should certainly jump on the opportunity to make a change.”

He added the MQM had proposed promotion of the microfinance sector in urban centres, as this would enable the youth to establish small to medium-sized enterprises.

Taj Haider from Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) said that a total 40 million Computerised National Identity Cards were issued during the five-year tenure of the PPP-led government. “Around 80 per cent of them were issued to the youth, enabling and empowering them to participate in the elections.”

Kamal Ahmed from Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and Bashir Jan from Awami National Party also spoke on this occasion.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 20^th, 2013.