In Pakistan the constituency politics is altogether a different ball game than the national politics. I am a common Pakistani. I have access to the information like everybody else. Due to media and the modern technology, there hardly is any place in Pakistan, which is deprived of the information. The truth is that people are still very much ignorant of the real democratic process.
In Pakistan, there many people who see no point in voting. Majority of the voters in the constituencies don’t really go for the national issues. A voter in any given constituency vote according to his “fraternity” or “Bradari”, as it is normally called. A ‘Chaudry’ would only vote for ‘Chaudhry’. A ‘Mailsi’ would only vote for ‘Mailsi’, A ‘Oarakzai’ would only vote for ‘Oarakzai’ and like wise. This is the case throughout the rural areas of Pakistan, which comprise most of the voters of Pakistan. In cities, fraternity system isn’t that strong, but it has its clout. In the urban constituencies, its all about attending the funerals, weddings and other social events. People keep track of the attendance of their political figures in such events. If one elected member has dugg out streams of honey and milk in his constituency, but has failed to attend the funerals and weddings, people would say in next elections, “My father died, and he had to die only once ,and you didn’t show up, so now forget about our votes.”
The other thing in most of the rural areas of Pakistan is that candidates invite the whole village over a lavish meal before the elections. The candidate whose meal is more lavish and abundant with the facility of hometake has got more chances to win the elections, no matter how illiterate or incompetent he is.
Now electronic old media, print media and blogs are screaming about this farce of electing a commander-in-chief as a president, but nation is just indifferent. Because they don’t really understand the implications, and they don’t see any wrong with it, until their fraternity supports it, or they are getting the free meals. The rapidly increasing population, which understands this has not leadership to follow, and they in a wait state. And present regime thinks that nation is very happy and is highly supportive of them.
Only education can remedy this. Until and unless, education doesn’t reach to these rural areas and people start to think out of the box, its very hard to bring change. This vicious cycle would continue. We need to think beyond the fraternities and the attendance in funerals. We need to think dynamically, and we need to vote for a system, and not for personalties. We need to learn to fight for our rights, otherwise we will be wiped out, like we wipe out that election meal.
