Ok, Babu and Bibi, I take your word for it, and I agree to poll my vote. But I am in a great quandary as to whom should I bestow my vote upon? Both of your candidates are as bad as each other, and their other alternatives are just as bad, if not worst.
That is the basic predicament faced by millions of voters across Pakistan. Whether you ask from upper class or middle upper class or from the lower class, people aren’t simply interested in voting. Those who are just don’t know a heck about the objective of elections, and the current national and international affairs, and about why it is important and why it isn’t.
Whether Pakistanis are voting or they are not, there is a striking similarity in their opinion about the elections. They know that their vote has no value and it isn’t going to change anything. They just laugh the argument out that full participation in the election will enable them to root out the dictatorship and will pave the way for dream democracy. They know the futility and romanticism of the argument that only by casting their vote they can keep the bad guys out of controlling their destinies.
In itself things like democracy, elections, and votes are good thing, as they enable a society or nation to elect what they deem best. Through elections, they can decide what’s right and wrong for them. Through voting, they can elect the best candidate suited well for the pubic service. But that’s alien to Pakistan.
Here, for starters, majority of people are ignorant and illiterate, and they take elections as just another funfair to enjoy at the expense of the candidates. The candidates themselves are the biggest thugs, goons, smugglers and criminals of the area. In most constituencies, Biradari system (Fraternity System) rules, and people blindly vote for the candidate from their Biradari no matter what. In Pakistan, it’s the politics of hard cash and Biradari.
So I am ready to vote wholeheartedly, but I have no one to vote to, but hoodlums and thugs.
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