PARLIAMENT has been dissolved. Caretakers are controversially but gradually falling into place. The caretaker prime minister has pledged to hold elections on time, despite last week’s clumsy attempts on several fronts to delay polls. Now’s the time to consider who to vote for.

For many Pakistanis, the answer to that question is a foregone conclusion based on ethnic or linguistic identity or familial or tribal loyalty. But for the growing urban population — increasingly remote from kinship and patronage networks — and idealistic young voters, the dream of choice exists. An increasing number of us have the space and luxury to ponder party manifestos, service delivery track records, politicians’ stances on issues such as minority rights, energy, the environment, and much else.

Of this subset, what will happen to those who survey the political landscape and decide all the options are bad options? According to the Pakistan National Human Development Report on youth released last month, 90 per cent of young males and 55pc of young females intend to vote in the next election, but only 24pc of them say they trust political leaders. Given such statistics, would Pakistan benefit from having the ‘none of the above’ (NOTA) option on the ballot?

Would casting a vote for ‘none of the above’ work in Pakistan?

We decided against it in 2013. But several countries — including, since 2014, India — offer the electorate the option of a protest vote. The thinking is that the NOTA option strengthens democracy and discourages cynicism about politics: it allows citizens to participate in the democratic system and exercise their right to vote and freedom of expression without having to compromise their values by endorsing politicians that they perceive to be unfit. The ideal is that a large number of NOTA votes would drive parties to improve service delivery, put forward better candidates and improve relations with their constituents.

In principle, NOTA is a superb idea. What better way to support a system while punishing those who do not serve it well? The embarrassment alone of having a large number of voters opt for NOTA should spur better performance by our representatives.

Moreover, it would stem the tide of political apathy in Pakistan. Yes, our politicians are corrupt. Yes, they are misogynists. Yes, many of them are incompetent. Yes, few have done enough to develop their constituencies or promote the interests of those they represent. But we have suffered for too long by conflating the calibre of our politicians with the democratic system itself. The NOTA vote would help decouple the two, instilling regard for a system that allows you to be heard, and demand better from your representatives.

Our population is young; much of the electorate comprises first-time voters. We are still getting used to the phenomenon of governments completing terms and recurring elections. Pakistan still has a long way to go to entrench democratic practice — the culture of voting itself. NOTA can help ease the transition at a time of growing disillusionment with the political class.

Sadly, it would not work in Pakistan, primarily because of the omnipresent concern about hidden hands’ interference in the political system. Our politicians are already battered — their legitimacy and credibility is undermined at every turn as part of a grand scheme to keep the political system weak. Those of us who demand better from our representatives also have to acknowledge that they are so consumed by existential issues that there is little time to spare for policymaking or service delivery.

In a perverse twist, the more pressure our political class faces, the more it is manipulated and eroded, the more we need to support it, no matter how venal or incompetent, in the name of preserving democracy. In this context, NOTA is no longer a citizens’ protest vote, it becomes an act of collusion with anti-democratic forces, yet another form of attack against a beleaguered political class. One can easily imagine a scenario in which a large number of NOTA votes is used by the powers that be to legitimise the displacement of the democratic system, rather than recognise it as an affirmation of that very system.

Our entrenched culture of patronage politics is also antithetical to the NOTA option. Why stand in line, in the heat, for nothing? Pakistani voters are nothing if not pragmatic. One thumbprint in exchange for a tube well, a road repair, a plate of biryani. The way our politics is conceptualised, a vote is not a right or an exercise of power or speech. It is a micro-transaction.

NOTA works best in contexts where democracy itself isn’t threatened, just the quality of that democracy is; where the act of voting is considered sacrosanct. And herein is another catch-22 for Pakistan’s political future: how will our democratic system mature if we can’t take advantage of measures such as NOTA that would strengthen it?

The writer is a freelance journalist.
huma.yusuf@gmail.com
Twitter: @humayusuf

Published in Dawn, June 4th, 2018