Daily Times

The Local Bodies’ Elections (LBE) are happening in Sindh and Punjab. The second phase in these provinces was concluded the day before. I was lucky enough to travel to and observe polling in the districts ofSheikhupura, Chiniot, MandiBahauddin and Hafizabad where I cast my vote. The people seemed very excited.There were colourful posters, stickers and flex sheets reflecting different political parties and their candidates. Indeed, independent candidates were not lagging behind in mobilisational politics. At certain polling stations, political violence was also observed. In one such case in MandiBahauddin, the public and police encountered each other and, in Hafizabad, a MPA belonging to the PML-N was maltreated by his political opponents from the PTI. Thesedistricts, along with many others in Pakistan are host to religious, ethnic and caste (biradri) identity. This phenomenon is still strong in the rural constituencies. In the urban setting, however, concerns such as welfare-sanitation, education and health — have gradually overwhelmed purely caste-based politics. However, at the micro-level, caste association plays its organisational and associational role. Local and general electionsare very important exercises in many ways.
For example, such elections enable the socio-economically marginalised to be approached by the political elite. Indeed, I have seenscores of cases duringthe past and present elections where (local) socio-economically powerful politicians took pains to knock on the doors of the poor to incentivise them to poll for a respective candidate and/or party. The foregoing, however, raises questions about the political behaviour of the elite and the masses. Why is it that the political elite do not stay in touch with the voters who helped them get elected and become powerful politically? In other words, why do politicians visit their constituencies only during election time and not before and afterwards? More importantly, why does a voter vote for the same politician on different occasions? Does a voter really matter in Pakistan’s electoral, political and democratic process? These are repeatedly asked questions on television shows, in corner meetings, cafés and drawing rooms. There are, however, no easy answers. This article is only an attempt to understand and explain voter and politicianbehaviour, choices, strategies, outcomes and impact on democratisation and socio-economic development.
There are mainly three approaches in political science to measure voterbehaviour during an electoral campaign: cleavages, retrospective and prospective. The cleavages approach focuses on socioeconomic, ethnic, sectarian and caste differences, and divides in a political community to explain the possible choices of a voter. Primordial values thus are emphasised over purely rational calculation. This perspective has helped scholars understandelectoral choice formation, for example in India, where caste as a factor has historically dominated local and state politics and democracy. In tribal and rural Pakistan where caste and/or the sectarian dividehas been consolidated, the cleavages approach may come in handy. It would also be applicable to, for instance, urban Sindh where certain ethnic communities generally vote for the same community in the name of shared language and culture. The cleavages approach, nevertheless, has lost explanatory potential in liberal democracies such as the US and Germany where primordial values have been gradually replaced with rational and liberal norms of socialisation and political organisation. Probably such a perspective will not predict a modernised urban voter’s behaviour regardless of geographical location.
The retrospective approach assumes both voters and contestants are rational human beings who put more value to material benefits. Hence, during a specific electoral contest, voters tend to make a comparative analysis of the past performanceof two candidates and then vote for the one who performed better with respect to socio-economic development. Put simply, if a candidate in Lahore provided more educational, health and transportation facilities to hisrespective voting constituency in the last five years, the respective constituency will most likely vote for the same candidate and political party. Scholars in the field have provided useful voting data in cases from central Europe, North America and even Asia i.e. Japan and South Korea. In Pakistan, educated urban voters’ behaviour can be measured by applying the retrospective approach.
The prospective perspective is also grounded in the rational choice theory and is an attempt to explain the electorate’s behaviour in terms of expected utility. Rather than tracing past performance, scholars and observes look towards the future. Who will provide more services and jobs to a constituent? Which political party has published a comprehensive manifesto? The prospective approach is very useful in the case of, for example, the US. Voters in such cases take calculated risks to prefer a candidate who might not have been involved in politics and the development sector but has shown a strong campaign with an attractive manifesto to improve upon the materialconditions of a community. Quite interestingly, the followers of the PTI fall into this category. They generally abhor existing political parties, their manifestos and past performance. Nor do they prefer one old face to another old face at the national level. However, at the provincial and local level, PTI voters face contradictions. They have, for example, voted for an old face in my constituency, Sukheki (Hafizabad), despite the fact that this local political elite was unable to provide modern education, transport, communication and health facilities to the constituency under previous governments. Owing to this, the educated PTI voter has either abstained from polling or has registered his protest with the party leadership.
On the other hand, the political elite in Pakistan does not have a systematic view of the electorate. We have very few cases where polls are held on behalf of a particular political party. Nor are there any pattern-based intra-party elections. To cap it all off, politicians in Pakistan have collectively evolved themselves to be authoritarian, dynastic, partisan and anti-people. “Politicians came to my door after five years to get my vote. They do not like to shake hands with me before and after an election,” said Allah Ditta, 62, who cast his vote in KotSarwar (Hafizabad) for an old face who has shiftedhis loyalty from the PML-N to the PPP to the PML-Q to now the PTI. “I voted for IhsanBhatti of the PML-N. Previously, I had voted for LiaqautBhatti. The former will help me with the police,” said NooriMossali.
As the above suggest, the poor and socio-economicallymarginalised lack the structural capability to contest (local) electionsagainst richpoliticians who have, with time, become entrenched with the authoritarian structure of the state. No wonder that around 500 rich families have controlled politics and the development agenda in a Pakistan of around200 million people. In such an unequal context, the voter possesses weak agency to transform his status from voter to contestant. The elite dominant political structure is likely to prevail in the coming elections too. There is probably no short cut. The weak and routine voters will have to generate a consensus amongst themselves to have candidates of their own to challenge the existing electoral hegemony of the powerful political elite. Any other solution will be short-term and may backfire.

The writer is a political scientist by training and professor by profession. He is a DAAD fellow and the author of Military Agency, Politics and the State in Pakistan. He tweets @ejazbhatty