By-elections: Race for NA-48 lacks vigour this time around

August 20 is the last date for campaigning.

ISLAMABAD:

The replay of the battle for urban Islamabad’s National Assembly seat is turning out to be a dud.

With just two days left before the August 20 deadline for ceasing campaigning for by-elections on August 22, voter mobilisation in the capital’s NA-48 appears to be low and election campaigns of contesting candidates have struggled to gain momentum.

Twenty-two candidates are contesting for the seat vacated by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) Javed Hashmi. But only three mainstream political parties — the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N), Pakistan People’s Party and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf — have candidates in the running.

Streamers and banners of candidates are visible on some street corners and avenues and candidates are trying to muster crowds at corner meetings but a stimulating election fever is missing from the city. The campaign was also interrupted by Eid holidays and Independence Day celebrations.

Voter turnout might not touch the 59.55 per cent turnout on May 11. But that is not an anomaly. Experts suggest voter turnout in by-elections seldom parallels the turnout during general elections.

“The euphoria and mass mobilisation witnessed in general elections is usually not replicated in the by-elections,” said Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT) Executive Director Ahmed Bilal Mehboob. “It is because the possibility of government change through the general elections ceases to exist in the by-elections.”

Mehboob said there is no reason for the decrease in voter turnout to be disproportionate across political parties. The reduction might not affect any particular party, he said.

But he pointed out that people are more likely to vote for localised concerns, such as which candidate can get their demands fulfilled realistically, in by-polls.

“On the basis of this consideration, people might prefer to vote for the ruling party’s candidate,” he said. “The logic is that the ruling party’s politicians would be able to help the constituents more, so the PML-N might have a slight edge in Islamabad.”

Anwar Ali, a shopkeeper in G-9 market, who did not vote in the general elections, seemed to agree with Mehboob’s assessment.

“I am thinking of voting for the tiger,” he said, referring to PML-N’s election symbol. “The people in power cannot at least make the excuse that someone stopped them from serving the public.”

But PML-N’s official candidate, Advocate Ashraf Gujjar, has had a difficult time mobilising party workers in the capital to back his campaign. Gujjar’s campaign was further hampered because of the controversy surrounding PML-N’s official ticket.

That controversy, which involved former PML-N MNA from NA-48, Anjum Aqeel Khan trying his best to get the party ticket, was settled only recently when Khan withdrew from the by-polls on the direction of his party’s leadership.

On Saturday, Khan participated in a public gathering for Gujjar’s campaign at Tarnol along with party big wig Hamza Shahbaz and NA-49 MNA Dr Tariq Fazal Chaudhry to boost Gujjar’s odds for making it to the National Assembly.

The PTI’s candidate, Asad Umar, however, has been a visible campaigner as his party aims to retain the constituency it won on May 11. PTI’s Javed Hashmi vacated that seat after deciding to retain his hometown constituency in Multan.

On August 16, PTI Chief Imran Khan showed up in Umar’s support at a public meeting in Jhangi Syedan and the leader is also expected to address a rally in Islamabad on August 20, the last day of the campaign.

Votes from youth and women — middle-class residents of mostly upscale neighbourhoods —- had helped the PTI in Islamabad during the general elections. The party is expected to retain some of the votes, including that of Saleem Ahmed, a college student who lives in sector F-10.

“The PTI wants to empower people at the grassroots by establishing a local government system in Islamabad,” Ahmed, 19, said. “I believe this is the correct way to bring about true change in the country.”

Published in The Express Tribune, August 19^th, 2013.