Participation matters: In voter turnout, there is hope

Umeed.pk team carried out polls, shot videos and organised campaigns to help build awareness.

KARACHI:

To bring any significant change in Pakistan, a youth-led initiative, Umeed.pk, has decided that more and more people need to vote.

Umeed.pk tried to trace public opinion through a survey, focusing specifically on females who are nearly 45 per cent of the total registered voters. The project started in June 2012 with a singular mission, said Umeed.pk president Osama Bin Shoaib, while talking to The Express Tribune. “To make people participate in building Pakistan through voting, that is, our umeed [hope] for Pakistan.”

The team carried out polls, shot videos and organised campaigns during a 10-month period to help build awareness and shape opinions to increase participation in the electoral process, he explained. “This is a continuing attempt to educate people that we should not only exercise the right to vote but make sure that the votes do not help elect those who are corrupt and opportunists.”

In April 2013, the organisation conducted a survey in collaboration with Pulse Consultant that focused on public participating and behaviour in the upcoming polls from more than 1,300 Pakistani males and females in top 15 cities. A mere 26 per cent of the women opposed patriarchal norms that their votes will go to the candidate their male family members support. Around 48 per cent of both men and women agreed with the notion.



Perhaps the manner in which political talk shows have flooded the media is to blame, but only 20 per cent of the women and 43 per cent of the men in the country’s urban cities accepted that they have an interest in politics. Corroborating with their level of interest with politics, only 18 pe rcent women said they watch political talk shows with interest. Otherwise they feel compelled to watch them when their male family members are glued to the television screens, revealed the survey.

In terms of awareness, men took the cake as around 72 per cent of them knew they are registered voters but nearly half of the women either said they are not registered or claimed they were unaware of their voting status.

With elections taking place in a week, the people were quite pessimistic about the outcome. Nearly 68 per cent of the men said they have no faith in the current electoral process and agreed that “transparent elections are impossible in Pakistan”. More than half of them did, however, hope for betterment after the elections.

The campaigns launched by various organisations on social and electronic media to bring change via participation is having an impact as around 58 per cent of the men admitted that they were convinced to cast their votes after watching motivational videos.

When these residents do put their thumb on the ballot paper, nearly 48 per cent of them believed in securing personal interests in their choice of candidate. Around half of the urban males said they will prefer the party over a candidate’s personal character.

The responses split when the women were asked if they will prefer to vote for a female over a male candidate in their constituency. Around 40 per cent agreed that gender can play a significant role in attracting female votes and felt that female politicians perform better than their male counterparts. When it comes to political gatherings, the women were, however, reluctant to participate.

The women were also asked to name three live female politicians but nearly half of them failed to recall any name. The most popular among the rest of the respondents was Pakistan Peoples Party’s Sharmila Farooqi, followed by Sherry Rehman and Hina Rabbani Khar.



Published in The Express Tribune, May 5^th, 2013.