ISLAMABAD: Despite the fact that general elections have already been made controversial, 87pc of working people were found keen to cast their vote on Feb 8 and wanted general elections to be held on the scheduled date, according to a Pattan-Coalition 38’s survey conducted in 41 districts across the country during Jan 4-22 finds.

In total, 1,149 individuals and 820 office-bearers of 345 unions and associations belonging to poor classes were interviewed face-to-face.

About 27pc of them were women, which is close to Pakistan’s female labour participation rate.

Moreover, most of them believed that the Election Commission of Pakistan and the caretaker governments were mainly responsible for making elections controversial due to deliberate denial of level playing field (LPF) to some parties/candidates.

ECP, caretaker govt blamed for making elections controversial due to denial of level playing field

In response to ‘which institutions were responsible for not providing LPF, 55pc blamed ECP and caretaker government, while 16pc named establishment and 20pc said all of them including judiciary.

On availability of LPF, there appears some form of agreement across political divide. For instance, 67pc and 58pc of the survey respondents belonging to PPP and PML-N respectively appeared to believe that LPF is not available to PTI.

Regarding urban-rural background, 58pc of the respondents were from urban areas, and 30pc from rural. This was perhaps the first survey research ever conducted with the marginalised and professional people and their associations on voting dynamics, behaviour and electoral issues including electoral governance in Pakistan.

The survey respondents were also asked to list three top-most issues that they and the country had been facing. The ranking shows price-hike, poverty and organised exploitation, injustice, corruption and selective implementation of laws and policies by elites as three most serious issues. And more than 90pc of marginalised people and office-bearers of their associations appear to find elites and so-called electables solely responsible for their problems.

About 41pc of the respondents were also found blaming PDM, and the caretaker government for the current multi-faceted crises while 12pc charged PTI government, 6pc mentioned ECP and 7pc judiciary while about 31pc were likely to blame all of them.

As far popularity of parties is concerned, about 50pc of the survey respondents from Sindh were likely to vote for Pakistan People’s Party while at the national level its support dropped to just 17pc.

Similarly, 23pc voters opted for PML-N in Punjab, but at the national level only 16pc respondents preferred PML-N. Like many other opinion polls, the survey also found PTI as the most popular party at the national level having 39pc favourable respondents. However, in KP and Punjab the PTI’s popularity surges to 44.5pc and 47pc, respectively.

The survey found a rare phenomenon – popularity gap between some political leaders and their parties. The most glaring examples are of Imran Khan and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. In case of Imran Khan, he is 10pc more popular than his party at national level while in case of PPP Bilawal is likely to be 12pc less popular than his own party in Sindh. The survey data shows huge prevalence of resentment against political dynasties and elite capture. Perhaps this is one of the reasons for dwindling support of PPP and PML-N.

To measure accuracy of the roll, the respondents were asked to share information about deceased family members. Around 28pc of the respondents said they had lost some family member in the last few years; 37pc of them said they had checked details of the dead relatives through 8300 and 27pc of those who checked names of their deceased relatives found the names on the final electoral rolls.

The survey data also clearly showed that political parties and citizens’ associations especially of marginalised people have no organised interaction and relationship with each other.

Despite all the setbacks such as rising cost of living, injustice, poverty, poor governance and lack of level playing field, 82pc of the survey respondents were found to be hopeful of Pakistan’s future. Therefore, it is essentially vital to channelise their hope into concrete outcome.

The best way forward is to understand importance of associations of marginalised people in building democratic polity and governance, form nationwide coalition of marginalised people and their associations and build alliances with reform-minded intelligentsia.

Published in Dawn, January 26th, 2024