Daily Times

A research conducted by Punjab University Institute of Applied Psychology suggests that most voters did not give any importance to gender of the candidate, their caste and ethnic background.

However, the voters showed intent to vote for those candidates who have humanity, sound educational background and vision for development. A series of research has been conducted by students under the supervision of PU Institute of Applied Psychology Assistant Professor Dr Mujiba Ashraf to understand those psychosocial factors which affect voters and their voting decisions. Results of one study are based on sample of 250 literate men and women voters with mean age of 24 years in Lahore.

Dr Mujiba Ashraf stated that besides these psychosocial factors, it was also important to understand whether young adults in Lahore were actively engaged in political activities or not. She said that results of the third and last study based on sample of 200 young men and women with mean age of 26 years suggested that those research participants who have high political cynicism and political identity are involved more in online political activities as compared to those who have low political mistrust and political identity.

Moreover, most of the research participants showed low political self-efficacy which indicates that they are not engaged in online political activities. Therefore, based on these results, she said, it may be concluded that those young voters who do not identify with any political party and have low political self-efficacy may not be actively participating in political activities and perhaps may not be interested in casting their votes too.

In another study, they focused upon the transgender community who is also looking forward to vote. By applying strategy of taking individual interviews from 10 transgender persons in Lahore, most of them stated that they would like to cast vote to the candidate who would not only be wise and a man of his words but also educated, honest and a mature politician.

They also said that regardless of gender, they will vote for that person whose manifesto would clearly focus to provide job opportunities for the transgender persons as their community doesn’t want begging and dancing as profession anymore. Additionally, most of them repeatedly stated that during election day, all genders should be treated equally so they can cast their vote with respect and dignity.

Published in Daily Times, July 24^th 2018.