They’re going to cost Rs 47 billion, the upcoming polls will, though the Election Commission of Pakistan says the cost is going to swell by another two billion rupees. There are ballot papers that need to be printed; there is polling staff that needs to be paid, and trained before that; there are security costs. The cost, if we were to consider the National Assembly, with its 272 directly elected constituencies, is eighteen crores per constituency. A better metric is the average cost per registered voter, which, for the National Assembly, comes down to Rs 381, given the more than 120 million registered voters. If we were to assume a turnout of 45%, which the average of recent polls, the cost per vote cast would be Rs 838.
But there are higher prices to be paid in the run up to the elections, the sort that cannot possibly be recouped. Like the bomb attack in Dera Ismail Khan that killed five policemen and injured another twenty. Such events cannot be completely put on the run up to the elections, as we, as a country, are no stranger to terrorism, but it is intuitively plausible that the polls have had something to do with such attacks. Let us pray for the best and prepare for the worst; we don’t want a repeat of the horrors of the 2013 elections.
The financial costs most definitely – and the loss of human lives, we earnestly hope – will go towards the larger cause of democracy in the country, of which polls are the necessary condition. We owe it to the polity and our teeming millions, who make up the fifth largest nation on the face of the planet, that the exercise of democracy is executed in earnest and no cost, at least no financial cost, is spared.
However, there are also other requirements for democracy, other than merely going through the motions of conducting elections. There are lots of other freedoms and resulting public vigilance that makes the magic of democracy happen. The circumstances under which the elections themselves are taking place, however, make that a distant dream.
