Winning parties often mirror only a fraction of registered voters, leaving the fate of the majority hanging in the balance. Urgent reforms, including compulsory voting, are required to restore true democracy and represent the will of the people.
Javed Jabbar
February 5, 2024
The brazen tactics — by the triumvirate of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), the caretaker federal and provincial governments Punjab in particular and the judiciary (with only some exceptions), backed by the euphemism known as the establishment — are in full public view for anyone who wants to see.
Consequently, a major political party, PTI, is being prevented from formal participation, while its leader, a former prime minister has been
convicted in three different cases over the last one week alone. This is only one reason why the upcoming polls will be yet another non-representative expression of the Pakistani people’s political views. At the same time, I would love to be proved wrong.
At the outset, let this be noted: this writer is not a member of the PTI. In fact, on several instances, I have completely disagreed with the PTI’s decisions and policies. Yet, the way in which major political parties and other institutions have acted against the PTI, just before April 2022 and after, violates irreducible norms of fairness, decency, and impartiality.
Notwithstanding the bizarre, reprehensible actions of some elements
on May 9, 2023 — still not independently investigated and verified — the victimisation of PTI, as also the unrelated, yet contextually pertinent disregard for the ongoing protests in
Balochistan and
Gilgit-Baltistan are sources of profound unease, be they directly or indirectly related to the subject of this reflection.
Non-representative polls
Notwithstanding the above, one of the principal reasons for the persistent anomaly of electoral systems and results over the last 53 years is that in six out of 11 general elections, the average voter turnout has stood
at around 45 per cent. This means that more than half of the eligible voters in the country never recorded their preferences.
Meanwhile, in the five other elections, though the turnout was over 50pc, it never reached a two-third majority or more — a reasonably representative, though not complete portrait of reality.
In this writer’s view, the minimal turnout to validate an election should be at least 75pc, which is equivalent to the margin required to make a constitutional amendment in most democracies.
In other South Asian countries, on average in the recent past, though just two countries’ turnouts have reached over 75pc, only Afghanistan with 35-40pc was lower than Pakistan. Sri Lanka and the Maldives stood at 78pc, with Nepal at 69pc, and India and Bhutan at 66pc. Even Iran in West Asia managed 60pc.
Various factors shape voter turnout, the leading one being faith in the integrity of the electoral system followed by convenient access to polling stations (to be fair to Pakistan, one estimate claims that the average voter — the majority — can reach their respective polling station in about 10 minutes from their place of residence).
Other factors include conditions of law and order in and around polling locations, sheer apathy or lack of confidence in available choices, prejudice against women casting votes, and many more. All of these, collectively or individually, have contributed to Pakistan’s low voter turnout rates.
Winning parties often mirror only a fraction of registered voters, leaving the fate of the majority hanging in the balance. Urgent reforms, including compulsory voting, are required to restore true democracy and represent the will of the people.
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Pakistan Affairs
