How personalities overshadow key issues in Pakistani elections?
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Issues are generally of secondary importance in Pakistani elections which are usually dominated by debate around personalities. In the 1977 national election, it was the charismatic Zulfikar Ali Bhutto against an old-guard alliance. Since the first general election of 1970, people either passionately loved Bhutto, primarily because of his populist slogan of ‘Roti, Kapra aur Makan’ (bread, clothes and housing) or they resented his aggressive, relatively liberal and pro-nationalization stance. This divide became a permanent feature between Bhutto dynasty and anti-Bhutto parties in the subsequent elections. The 1985 election was boycotted by Bhutto’s daughter, Benazir, but the subsequent four elections in 1988, 1990, 1993 and 1997 were contested between Benazir, representing the Bhutto camp against anti-Bhutto grouping, primarily led by Nawaz Sharif. After a military coup in 1999, both Benazir and Sharif realized the folly of carrying on the personal feud and signed a ‘Charter of Democracy’ in 2006. In 2013, however, the bitter feud between Bhuttos and Sharifs was replaced by an even more lethal confrontation between Sharif and Imran Khan, an emerging leader back then. The 2018 election was contested under the shadow of this confrontation, which at times assumed the form of personal enmity.
The 2024 election will be dominated by a clash between passionate followers of Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan. The issues facing the country and debate on them will merely be a foot note. Chances are that the voters will mostly vote on the basis of emotive appeal of one leader or the other, instead of debating issues and serious ideas to resolve the critical problems faced by the country.
More than any election in the past, the issue of perceived or real interference of security establishment will feature most prominently in the upcoming election. The events of May 9, when Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf staged violent protests outside military installations in the country over his arrest, that confrontation has been unfortunately shaped into a direct clash between the security establishment and the PTI. Sharif, Asif Zardari and other political leaders opposed to Imran Khan are routinely branded as B-team of the establishment. This clash is more pronounced on social media than in mainstream newspapers and TV channels because of relatively greater freedom on social media platforms. The role of security establishment in political affairs of the state will, therefore, be the number one issue in the upcoming election.
The 2024 election will be dominated by a clash between passionate followers of Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan. The issues facing the country and debate on them will merely be a foot note. Chances are that the voters will mostly vote on the basis of emotive appeal of one leader or the other, instead of debating issues and serious ideas to resolve the critical problems faced by the country.
Ahmed Bilal Mehboob
Economy, of course, will be another key issue to be discussed during the election campaign but, sadly, it will not be the ideas on how to address serious economic challenges in the country. The major focus will be the blame game. The PTI will blame Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and other parties who formed coalition government after Khan’s ouster and, in turn, anti-Khan parties will blame the PTI for destroying the economy during its three-and-a-half-year rule. Both narratives will be faithfully accepted by respective followers. In a normal democracy, rival parties put forth solid solutions to state-owned enterprises making multi-billion-dollar losses, low exports, perennially poor collection of taxes, high cost of electricity generated by private power plants and unsustainable indebtedness. Sadly, these extremely critical issues remain on the sidelines in Pakistan.
In view of the limited resources of the country, a fast-growing population has emerged as one of the foremost issues. On August 5, the Council of Common Interests (CCI) approved the results of the 2023 census, according to which Pakistan’s population had increased to 241.49 million with an annual growth rate of 2.55 percent. Although it is one of the most crucial national issue, population management should but is not expected to figure during election debates.
Pakistan has to devote a relatively higher proportion of its resources to its defense, primarily because of very bad relations with India due to the Kashmir dispute. So far, only the PML-N has mustered the courage to strongly advocate for better relations with India and other regional neighbors.
Youth (aged between 15 and 29 years) forms a large segment (68 percent) of the population in Pakistan, but the avenues of education and employment are shrinking for them, leading to large-scale discontent. Currently, Pakistan has the world’s second-highest number of out-of-school children with an estimated 22.8 million children, aged between 5 and 16 years, not attending school, representing 44 percent of the total population in this age group. Such large young population with so limited human development constitutes a ticking time bomb. Hardly any party comes up with a plan to address the gigantic problem and it is no wonder that the subject doesn’t figure prominently in election debates.
— The writer is president of Pakistan-based think tank, PILDAT and tweets at @ABMPildat. He also shares his opinions on YouTube: @abmpildat.
