Voters’ anger
What started as
an unprecedented collaring of Sardar Jamal Leghari by angry and disillusioned
voters in his traditional constituency in Dera Ghazi Khan has by now begun to
acquire the contours of a movement with momentum. His constituents did not even
offer Jamal Leghari the normal respect and even obsequiousness reserved for
tribal chiefs. The questions they put to him in no uncertain terms were where
he had been since the last elections five years ago, what had he done for them
during this period, and why should they, on the basis of his indifference to
their problems, once more vote for him. And they would not be pacified or calm
down even in the face of Jamal Leghari’s pulling social ‘rank’ on them. This is
indeed unprecedented in our political culture, where tribal, caste, landowning
and religious factors traditionally play such a huge role in determining
political affiliations and voting patterns, particularly in the rural areas. Sardar
Jamal Leghari is not the only one to have had to face angry and insistent
questioners amongst his constituents. To take just a few examples, Farooq
Sattar of MQM-P faced a hostile reception in Memon Masjid, Karachi, PTI’s Arif
Alvi and PPP’s former chief minister Murad Ali Shah, PPP chairperson Bilawal
Bhutto Zardari, all received a ‘roasting’ at the hands of dissatisfied voters in
their respective constituencies. Former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi,
Awais Leghari, former leader of the opposition Syed Khursheed Shah, former
federal ministers Sikandar Bosan, Zahid Hamid and Afzal Rana too have been on
the receiving end of their voters’ pent up wrath. Former Punjab law minister
Rana Sanaullah and PTI’s Sheikh Khurram Shahzad have fallen foul of the
Faisalabad powerloom workers for similar reasons. The idea of ‘naming and
shaming’ the elected representatives seeking votes for re-election is new, and
has found traction because of mainstream and social media exposure and sharing of
such ‘confrontations’.
While this new
phenomenon reflects an increase in political consciousness on the part of the
electorate, credit is also due to the continuity of democracy, however flawed,
for the last 10 years, during which the first transfer of power through the
ballot box from the incumbents to the opposition in our history took place in
2013. While the right to hold elected representatives accountable is
unassailable and should be welcomed as a maturing of political consciousness
amongst the masses, the resort to physical misbehaviour or violence is a
stretch too far. Pushing, shoving, attacking with sticks and stones (as
happened to Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s cavalcade in Lyari, and which the PPP has
blamed ‘rivals’ for orchestrating) is not within the parameters of democratic
accountability nor sanctioned by the law or election rules. Such outbreaks of
resort to violent means in the midst of an already tense political atmosphere
rife with accusations of pre-polls rigging, stacking of the deck against one
particular political party, etc, is not conducive to the peaceful exercise of
the right of franchise by the electorate, which is one of the foundations of any
democratic order. The disappointment and disillusionment in the existing
mainstream political parties on the part of their voters has accumulated slowly
but surely, is by now at an all-time high, and arguably has been incrementally
fuelled by social media sharing of experiences and issues. This effect is in
fact a strong argument in favour of freedom of the media and expression, which
is the greatest conduit for informing and making the masses aware and conscious.
The electorate now is impatient for the redressal of its issues of
socio-economic justice, employment, poverty, civic facilities such as potable
water, electricity, gas, garbage disposal, health and a myriad other issues
that make life for the ordinary citizen a constant struggle and irritant. The
traditional political class had better wake up too to this new awakening
amongst hitherto passive and accepting voters. Their day in the old style seems
to be done, and if they fail to respond to the new zeit geist amongst the
people, their political future cannot be as sanguine and guaranteed as it has
been in the past.
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