The youth factor

In the elections 2013

The youth all over the world yearn for change but tend to lose interest in voting when regimes disappoint them. In the US the young voter turnout fell 60 percent from 2008 to 2010 and it was predicted that the Democrats won’t win in 2012 were the trend to persist. It was believed that Obama managed to break the trend which led to his victory.

In Pakistan, widespread frustration was witnessed among the young people after 2002. This was caused by the economic policies that led to rise in unemployment, a widening gulf between the richest and the poorest and widespread corruption by politicians and bureaucracy. With the trend continuing after 2008, many thought the graph of frustration would continue to rise among the youth.

What surprised many was the way young people gravitated to the public meetings organised by the PTI in Lahore, Karachi, Quetta and Hyderabad. This was attributed to the burgeoning urban middle class which supposedly was fed up with cronyism and corruption and wanted merit to prevail. The children from these families studying in upscale English medium schools had imbibed Western culture while they also wanted to combine it with Islam. They found their voice in Imran Khan. Cynics, however, maintained that most of the people in this category were not serious enough and might not even turn up at the polling booths even if they cared to get themselves registered as voters.

The intra-party election held by the PTI in Islamabad has challenged the perception. It must have surprised many that around 63,000 voters of the party, mostly in the category of youth, went for intra-party polls in the federal capital on Sunday. Few parties can claim they have so many registered voters in any single district.

The voting was conducted through a modern electronic system which was a novelty in Pakistan and ensured transparency. All registered members of the party, whose mobile numbers and CNIC numbers were already enlisted, were required to call any of the two UAN numbers and cast their votes through SMS. There were naturally unforeseen hitches. Some of the voters found the dedicated land lines blocked and mobile phone networks choked and had to turn up at the polling booths set up as an alternate arrangement.

Islamabad, of course, has certain peculiarities that are absent in other places. It has a high literacy rate, a larger middle class, and more technology savvy youth than in the rural areas which supply the bulk of the voters. The federal capital has plenty of the type of voters who are attracted by Imran Khan. The test of the PTI’s popularity among youth will come when it holds intra-party elections in the rural areas of the four provinces. With fewer landline connections and mobile phones, it would pose bigger difficulties in the way of mobilising its young cadre. The PTI claims it has installed a mechanism allowing over seven million party voters to participate in the intra-party elections to be completed by the end of December or in early January. In case the experience succeeds, it would show the PTI has a big reservoir of committed voters no other party can claim to possess.

According to the Election Commission of Pakistan, almost half the total registered voters, or 47.5 percent of 84.3 million, are under the age of 35. The figure is likely to rise as about 400,000 fresh CNICs are being issued every month at present. On paper the young voters look like a formidable force.

The PTI has an attraction for the youth because the two other parties have been tested and their performance found dismal. The younger generation wants change. The political culture in the older parties characterised by leadership centred in certain families and undemocratic functioning is unacceptable to many. The PTI is seen as a party where promotion would depend on merit rather than family connections.

Again, unlike Imran Khan, the PPP and the PLM-N have paid only cursory attention to the youth as an important section of voters. Both the parties continue to rely on the so-called electables whose politics revolves around beradari, ethnic appeals, and at places communal votes. Both hope to form government through wheeling dealing with smaller parties who would make it to the NA and the provincial assemblies. The political or economic manifestos they announce have little importance even in their own eyes. Reconciliation can be reached with anyone who manages to reach the legislatures. The basis for political alliance would be sheer convenience.

The PML-N has lately tried to attract the youth through distribution of laptops. In Punjab, it has held a week long well attended Punjab Youth Festival. It has initiated the Punjab Youth Internship Programme. The measures would attract a small part of the youth and that too in one province.

The PPP has held two ‘Pakistan Leaders of Tomorrow’ conferences addressed by Bilawal Bhutto. As these were organised by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and held in the Presidency, they turned out to be lifeless gatherings of a few hundred.

The PTI, on the other hand, has from the beginning tried to engage the youth. It formed the Insaf Students Federation. The arrival of the ISF may not signal the end of APMSO, IJT, or MSF, but it has made the most effective use of social media and mobile phones for enlisting new members, keeping in constant touch with them and mobilising them. This explains why the PTI can hold successful intra-party polls with youth as the major section of voters, something not possible for PPP or PML-N.

Imran’s surge witnessed in 2011 had lost momentum by the end of last year. The present year witnessed fewer activities by the PTI other than the march to Waziristan which made little impact. There were, on the other hand, desertions on the part of some of the electables he had brought to the party. Another imponderable is the role of the traditional factors like beradari, tribe, or ethnicity in the forthcoming elections. In 1971, these were swept aside by Bhutto whose economic programme and personality played a decisive role. The social or economic policies of the PTI, PPP and PML-N are not essentially different from one another. The party does not stand for land reforms. It holds out no solution for the widespread unemployment. It offers little other than the mythical trickledown to bring down poverty and bridge the yawning gulf between the richest and the poorest. Can the factor of the youthful voters alone become a catalytic agent in the absence of an economic and social programme which is not only realistic but has also a mass appeal?

The writer is a former academic and a political analyst.