Allah has blessed me with life long enough to have witnessed and participated in all the general elections held in Pakistan. Polls in our country have always remained subject to controversies and conspiracies. The much-trumpeted fair general elections of 1970 were also not so transparent after all. I used to live in Rawalpindi on account of my job. On the day of the election, I went to my village to observe my civic duty to cast the vote. To my surprise, the presiding officer at our village told me that my vote had already been cast. Pakistan People’s Party was riding a high tide on the back of their popular slogan “roti kapra aur makaan” during those elections. My relatives told me that Raja Rauf, a leader of PPP had accompanied all members of our extended family to the polling booth to ensure their votes were cast for “sword”, the symbol of the PPP. The losing candidate from the PML cried foul alleging irregularities in the election process, which to some extent was true. After this incident, I developed serious doubts about the possibility of a fair democratic process in a country like ours. I believe that politics is a game of rich and powerful where poor and marginalized a exploited and used as pawns. Those who have the money and blessings of the power brokers hoodwink the less privileged to their side to gain power and forget them. The elections seem a farce where winners claim a victory and losers cry foul. I wonder if we will ever have a system where people can really choose their representatives based on what matters to people and the country. Until that time, we will keep seeing the same old plot being repeated every time resulting in the multiplication of the wealth of the powerful at the cost of the poor people of Pakistan.
Raja Shafaatullah
Islamabad
