The queue was long and the mercury was rising. It had been half an hour that young Muhammad Waseem had been braving May’s heat in a long queue at a polling booth to cast his vote in the country’s first transition of power from one civilian regime to another.
Aged 25, Waseem works at a local hotel and is going to vote for the PML-N. His reason: Nawaz Sharif performance as the PM during his two previous terms. “It is going to take another hour to get inside the polling booth, but that’s alright, as it is my responsibility to vote for a leader who will steer the country out of darkness,” he said while moving ahead in the queue. This is a polling station in NA-120—the constituency where the PML-N Chief Nawaz Sharif is contesting himself.
Despite being a traditional stronghold for his party, it was not meant to be an easy ride for Nawaz. A young girl Sidra Mushtaq seems equally enthusiastic for she is voting for Dr Yasmin Rashid of Imran Khan’s PTI. “I’ve heard a lot of good things about the candidate [Yasmin], but the vote is for Imran Khan who is honest, has no charges of corruption and will bring the change that he has promised,” said Sidra smilingly.
Ultimately, the poll results will make it clear who bags the majority votes, however, what was noticeable was peoples’ resolve from all age groups coming to cast their vote to support their candidate and strengthen democracy.
A lot of improvements have been noticed this time around: printed electoral rolls with photographs of voters, no big incident of violence in the city and a large number of young voters’ turn out.
The Saturday’s election was in many ways an epitome of all the excitement the voters have been showing on the streets of the metropolitan. Even on Friday night, a large crowd mostly from the PTI and the PML-N gathered in various places in the city despite a ban on ‘political campaigning’, reflecting the enthusiasm of the people ahead of the elections.
A lot of youngsters as well as many families mostly in cars and on bicycles came out on the city’s roads carrying flags and banners of their respective parties late on Friday night. The festivity remained in the air since the parties started their campaign, but it started gaining momentum with the elections nearing and became even stronger on Saturday evening after the polling concluded.
The youth, mostly in cars and on motorbikes kept plying the city roads playing loud music, raising slogans for their leaders anticipating a win much before the election results were announced.
“We are cheering for our leader, who is definitely going to win and we know it. We have started celebrations already,” Waqas Azeem, a youth with his torso outside the front window of his car told the Pakistan Today waving his party’s flag and shouting a slogan right afterwards.
Other than a few small incidents of scuffles or firing, the elections ran smooth throughout the metropolitan probably reflecting the political maturity expressed by all big parties in the run.
“Despite being a battleground for the PTI and the PML-N, the voting process has remained smooth. No security issues or power outages were witnessed. It’s just that the female police personnel should have been deployed as the women here don’t listen to anyone; they fight and don’t want to stand in a queue. The male police officers refrain from touching them or even asking them for the fear of making an issue out of it and that’s only remained an issue,” Shagufta Ijaz, a presiding officer in NA-122 told Pakistan Today.
There were also claims from a few individuals that they were not allowed to enter the polling booth because of their political affiliation, but the impression was dispelled by the police in-charge and the general situation at the concerned booth.
