PAKISTAN’S transition from one elected government to another is cause for celebration.

On my most recent trip to Pakistan my celebratory reference almost became a mantra that I’d recite each time I was accused of being ‘pessimistic’ about Pakistan’s future.

So, now that we’ve momentarily celebrated, let me explain my alleged pessimism. Earlier this year I came to Pakistan to make two documentaries. For the first I wanted to investigate the violence against the Hazara community in Quetta. For the second I was looking at Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, in particular, their effect on Pakistan’s Christian minority.

Soon after I arrived I heard news of a blasphemy case in Lahore’s Joseph Colony. A Christian man, Sawan Masih, and his Muslim best friend had exchanged heated words after a drinking session. Masih was accused of blasphemy.

Within 24 hours, over 100 Christian-owned homes and two churches were set alight. The police helped vigilante groups clear the area of Christian families in preparation for the looting and burning.

The Joseph Colony episode was a clear assertion that in Pakistan, ‘minority rights’ and ‘rule of law’ are terms with little legal or practical meaning.

A few hundred miles away in Quetta I met mother of four, Ruqsana Bibi. Ruqsana is Hazara Shia. As we sat down on the floor of her family home she talked me through her memories of Jan 10.

Earlier that day I’d visited the shell of a snooker hall located on Alamdar Road. In January a suicide bomber walked into the hall, a hangout for young Hazara men, and detonated his device. Fifteen minutes later, as volunteers and rescue workers flooded the area to help; a second bomb was detonated. Over 120 people died that day.

Three of Ruqsana Bibi’s sons were amongst those trying to help. “When I heard the news I ran to the mosque barefoot and I saw the bodies of three of my children. I kissed their faces. I said to the eldest, ‘You must take care of your brothers in the grave.’ Who are these people who want to cause conflict between Sunnis and Shias?”

The militant group Lashkar-i-Jhangvi (LJ) has terrorised Pakistan’s Shia community for years. A Quetta-based journalist told me he received a call from a group leader 10 minutes after the snooker hall bombing demanding that he publish a statement by the LJ taking responsibility for the bombings and justifying its anti-Shia stance.

More shocking still are the accounts of military, police and policymakers in Quetta who explained why no action against the LJ has been taken. A senior military spokesman, wishing to remain anonymous explained: “Quetta is small. Half the city is the cantonment. We could stop this but the intelligence service won’t work with us. There is something bigger going on.”

Almost universally, when I ask about the whys of the Quetta bombings I receive answers about Iranian involvement, Saudi influence, American money and geopolitical war. Neither the military nor the police take responsibility for defending Quetta because of such ‘external factors’.

It’s this conspiracy-laden cocktail of half facts and pseudo theories that has permeated so much of Pakistani politics that the obvious question — why is the government consistently failing to protect Pakistani citizens — is never really asked.

A handful of arrests were made in Joseph Colony but where is the public debate about the blasphemy law? Why has no action been taken against the LJ? The group is in theory proscribed but its sister organisation Sipah-i-Sahaba is openly fielding candidates in the upcoming election under the name Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat.

Where are the protests? Most of Pakistan is too busy pointing fingers across borders and discussing half-baked conspiracies to even acknowledge that the government is asleep. The government is meant to protect its citizens. It is fundamentally and consistently failing. It must be held accountable.

It was in Islamabad, at the home of Paul Bhatti, former minister for interfaith harmony, that I received the most honest answer to the question of government failure.

“For the majority of Pakistan’s history, we have been ruled by the military. We have not had the time or opportunity to implement policy properly.”

Perhaps the takeover by the interim pre-election government meant that Bhatti was willing to speak openly, but whatever it was, this acknowledgement made sense. In a nation where the military is so celebrated, culturally and financially, who is really to blame for the deficit in security?

The fact is, elected governments have hardly ever had the opportunity to fully form and implement effective policy in Pakistan. The electorate, so deflated by decades of military intervention, has learned to expect nothing. No security, no progress, no stability. Nothing.

This explains why, perhaps, when I ask Ruqsana Bibi what she wants the government to do she responds by telling me “I am not interested in politics. I just want the killing to stop.”

The relationship between the electorate and Pakistan’s leadership must begin healing through this election. Amongst all the speculation about gains, losses and wild cards there is already one triumph. The Pakistani people will at last witness a democratic transition. By asserting values over tribalism and by beginning to hold leaders accountable, Pakistan must de-programme the culture of expecting nothing.

The persecution of Pakistan’s minorities has been an electoral non-issue in 2013. It may take a generation for the issue of minority rights to gain electoral muscle but the mechanism of democracy is the only way for this to happen.

Only through the ballet box will Pakistanis begin to believe that they can shape their own futures and demand a nation that guarantees the rights of all its citizens.

The writer is a BBC journalist and filmmaker. The views expressed are his own and do not reflect those of the BBC.

Twitter: @Mobeen_Azhar