THE focus on Pakistan’s upcoming elections is of an existential nature: will they take place? Will the PTI endure in any form? Can Pakistani democracy survive such blatant orchestration? The answer to the last question is: it has to. And so we must seek for shreds of hope.

Our country’s democratic system is arguably facing its darkest spell yet, which may seem a dramatic assessment as the hurly burly of elections kicks off. But this is against the backdrop of a censored media, enforced disappearances, suppression of minority rights, a compromised judicial system, including a push for civilian trials in military courts, and threats to the Constitution, particularly targeting the 18th Amendment. In this context, a sham election seems the least of one’s problems.

The election itself, beyond the obvious puppet mastery, has more fundamental flaws, key among them the persistence of disenfranchisement. As Sarwar Bari wrote last month, up to 15 million voters across 102 (out of 134 districts) are missing from the electoral rolls.

This disenfranchisement is prevalent in Balochistan, where one-third of eligible voters in 31 districts have been excluded, but also in more developed parts of the country.

The missing voters include both men and women, with poverty likely a major reason for non-registration. The Ahmadi community is also systemically denied suffrage due to requirements to flag voters’ religious identities.

So where are those shreds of hope? The assumption is that sham elections erode a public’s engagement with the democratic process. But ours is a nation accustomed to democratic perversions, and it has not yet lost the appetite for democracy (think of elections in 1988, 2008, and to some extent 2013). In dark political times, should we entertain the idea that the electoral charade itself has merit?

More than 128.5m voters are registered — no small feat

If nothing else, the February elections will keep the electoral machine moving. More than 128.5m voters are registered — no small feat. The election gender gap persists, with women accounting for only 46.13 per cent of registered voters. But enfranchisement is improving: the gender gap for the first time in a decade is less than 10m, and marginalised communities continue to seek representation (consider the candidacies of Nayab Ali and Sobia Khan who are championing transgender rights).

Click to see more

The tenuous link between polls and service delivery also endures. The powers that be acknowledge the need to mobilise ‘electables’ who draw votes in exchange for patronage (a road, a tube well) for their district. At a brighter moment in Pakistan’s democratic trajectory, this trend must be entrenched with better local government structures to improve accountability.

There’s also something to be said for instilling the electoral habit. Anyone who has cast a vote recalls the thrill of it — the joy of collective participation, the fleeting euphoria of empowerment, the pride of sporting an ink-stained thumb. Voting is addictive, and one hopes that the more than 59m voters under the age of 35 will leave the polls in February with a craving for more democracy.

Pakistanis will head to the polls in a big year for elections — 76 countries, including eight of the 10 most populous, will hold elections in 2024. But democracy lovers are not celebrating. Many important elections (Pakistan, Russia, Bangladesh, Mexico) will not be free or fair, and other critical ones (the US, India, Indonesia) will be deeply flawed. Quality of polling, not quantity, is the purist’s call.

However, even in the global context, there is some cause for optimism. Elections that are neither free nor fair are explicitly so. The widespread acknowledgement that some elections are democratic façades erodes trust in current political stakeholders, but should not in the long run irreparably damage democratic systems.

Failures in representation, service delivery and policymaking will be blamed on the real power brokers and their complicit proxies, but not on the system itself. If the arc of the moral universe bends toward less nostalgia for autocrats, martial law and hybrid regimes, that is no bad thing.

Click to see more

Another interesting trend is the re-engagement of voters in developed democracies with the power of their vote. One example of this is pro-Palestine US voters who will struggle to vote for Joe Biden given his support for Israel. The notion of voting for Biden to keep Trump out no longer seems compelling enough.

Such thinking in the short term may lead to more instability and worse political outcomes, but in the longer run would invigorate issue- and-values-based politics and reinstate the integrity of the vote, strengthening democracy overall.

So darkness will persist, but democracy will prevail. Any other conclusion would be too bleak as we enter an annus electorum.

The writer is a political and integrity risk analyst.

X: @humayusuf

Published in Dawn, December 25th, 2023