Daily Times Editorial April 5, 2013

‘None of the above’ In an unexpected surprise move, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has decided to include a box on the ballot that will allow voters who do not want to vote for any of the candidates in their constituency to mark the ‘none of the above’ option. The only problem in implementing the decision is that it has no legal cover. A proposal was floated to this effect in the last parliament but failed to find legislative traction. The only way legal cover can now be provided to the move is for the ECP to move a summary to the caretaker prime minister to have a presidential ordinance issued. Needless to say, time is of the essence since the election date is looming, and before that the date for ordering the printing of the ballot papers is close at hand. Some observers have commented that Pakistan has once again followed in the footsteps of Bangladesh (the caretaker regime to hold elections being another example) by instituting the ‘none of the above’ option for voters. In principle, the innovation provides relief to that category of voters who may not be particularly enthusiastic about or enamoured of the slate of candidates on offer. It would save such people from the necessity of casting their vote for the least of all the ‘evils’. According to the ECP, if in any constituency 51 percent of the voters exercise the ‘none of the above’ option, a fresh election will have to be held in that constituency. The unanswered question though is what happens if the same raft of candidates re-presents itself the second time round? Will that mean no election or representation from that constituency? How will the ECP get over this hump? But quite apart from the fate of individual constituencies where the electorate may or may not return one of the candidates on offer, if the ‘none of the above’ option emerges as the preference of a large body of voters, it would be a severe indictment of the political class as a whole. Unlikely as such an outcome may prove, given the grave limitations of our political culture, in which traditional loyalties and those manufactured by economic, political and social coercion dominate in large parts of the country, and particularly the rural areas, it remains an intriguing possibility. Seeking the reasons for such a denouement is not likely to tax the brain. The last five years alone (never mind the rest of the 60 years of the country’s existence) provide a sufficient if not overwhelming basis for the mood of disillusionment and pessimism about the future that has gripped most if not all the people. Unemployment, inflation, energy shortages and the general misery of everyday existence have eroded the people’s faith in a better or brighter future to be delivered to them. It will not, unless they organise themselves to seize it for themselves However, the clamour for it notwithstanding, ‘change’ is neither well defined nor adequately understood. The tsunami mirage of Imran Khan still has huge holes, gaps and unexplained means to achieve all the goals his party has enumerated, none of which are the basis of Imran’s youth following. This demographic bulge, which renders Pakistan a ‘young’ country, is less inspired by what the PTI is saying than disillusioned and reacting to the ‘older’ parties and their political culture on the one hand, and gushing over Imran Khan’s undeniable charisma on the other. It is a sign of the times that the young are relatively unlettered in politics and unable to bring to bear the critical intellectual tools required to dissect the PTI or any party’s political stances and positions. It is also the irony of the times that this young following is unable to get its head around the ‘soft’ corner Imran Khan has for the Taliban, under the mistaken notion that they represent some sort of romanticised Pashtun warrior culture to be admired and emulated. This leaning of Imran’s is as far removed from the lived experience (books seldom making up the source of young people’s worldview these days) of our youth as it is possible to conceive. Yet the contradiction is neither reflected in nor finds expression inside the PTI rank and file for a different path. Contradictorily and sometimes frustratingly, Pakistan is nevertheless wading through the muck of our inherited past and striving, while trying to keep its head above the water in the interim, to break out to a better shore on the other side.