The game changer

2013 general elections may spring many surprises, but the most important one is likely to be higher turnout of voters.

As the polling day is less than a week away and canvassing at the grass-roots reaching a final frenzy point in every constituency in the country, the usual anxiety, fears, attacks by the anti-democratic fascists, and the big question, will this election be any different from the ones of the past, occupy everyone watching and contesting the polls. Elections in unstable, insecure and violent conditions are neither easy to conduct or contest, and never create a level playing field, as some of the political parties — the MQM, PPP and ANP are being targeted. They are under pressure and their resolve to not surrender to the terrorists is quite remarkable.

The bigoted ideology of violence targeted towards dampening the voter turnout or forcing the parties and candidates to run away from the electoral contest is not going to be the game changer. This is exactly what the terrorists want, for when they attack, the target of their violent campaign is not the party or the candidate, it is much larger. It is democracy, constitutional politics and representative government that are rooted in the belief that people must elect their governments. The religious extremists of violent brands know pretty well that they cannot win popular mandate. Nor do they believe in reason or trust people to be the best judge of who to elect as their representatives. Their medieval thought and practices are still fixed on the idea of conquest that they will never be able to achieve. The states, even in failing conditions like ours, can counter them effectively. The bigger challenge for Pakistani people, society and the political parties is that they realise who the real enemy is today. Make no mistake, it is the sectarian and religious extremists and the militant factions behind them.

Those, especially from the ANP, as around 30 of their leaders and candidates have been attacked during the election campaign, deserve our support for the sacrifices they have made for the constitutional, democratic process. One cannot imagine the grief, pain and suffering of their families — some of them have gone down with their minor children with them.

The violent groups and their politics of hate and murder cannot affect the democratic politics of Pakistan. The real game changer, rather, is going to be the people — whether or not they come out on the polling day in larger numbers than they have in the past. We know the reasons for low voter turnout — low trust in political parties, weak party organisations, poor performance of elected governments and deep-rooted social, structural problems of voter immobility.

The 2013 general elections may spring many surprises, but the most important one is likely to be the higher turnout of voters. It is going to be much higher, and may even be the highest in Pakistan’s history. Actually, this will be the game changer in the elections. (Even with 10 to 15 per cent of more votes polled compared with the 44 per cent voter turnout in the 2008 elections, the outcome will be very uncertain for the two major established political parties.)

Why am I so optimistic about voter turnout? First, it is the emergence of a new party, the PTI and its youth mobilisation strategy. It is working in the urban areas of Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Second, we have the highest number of candidates contesting — 4,671 for 272 general National Assembly seats. This may fragment the vote but may also pull out more people out of their homes on the polling day. Third, the crisis factor — energy, poor governance and bad economy — may cause people to vote for change.

Finally, the new campaign strategy of running political commercials on the electronic media is proving an effective tool of political communication. Higher turnout will certainly work for the PTI, but not sure to what extent.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 7^th, 2013.