The race begins…

So the final rounds of electoral campaigns are on the rise, the general public is busy in making all kinds of predictions (mostly for their favorite party to win), the political parties and their leaders are are very determined this time around too to successfully bag a sufficient numbers of seats to win the government and the news channels are all ready to make as much money with an abundance of breaking news regarding the elections as they can. Every entity in the country of Pakistan is getting affected by the upcoming elections and the case is, that this will not stop even after the commencement of the general elections. The effects, to be more accurate, ‘sufferings’ will not stop even after it. But lets just hope otherwise and pray that these elections turn out to be very ‘democratic’ and win us the leader who deserves to be on the seat, not in terms of being given the first chance, but in terms of the fact that this new leader that our country will be ruled by, is honest, a true leader, and a man of his word who will drive Pakistan towards the long dreamt success.

A look at the current situation of Politics in Pakistan

Now let us just have a look at the current situation and analyze, with our very amateur knowledge about politics, and find out what is the current situation and who has a higher chance of winning the General Elections 2018.
Judging by the looks of it, the current scenario is that the current sitting government is in a troubling position right now. The party leader, Nawaz Sharif, is in hot waters right now as many of his party members have announced to leave their party and join either some other party or stand in elections as an individual candidate. The members who left Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PMLN) were mostly seen joining Pakistan Tehreek e Insaaf (PTI). Now the damage in this situation is that when a candidate quits from a party and join in the army of any rival party, they take along their pool of voters with them which clearly suggests that there exists a candidate-centric framework of electoral competition in Pakistan rather than a party-centric scenario. But this is not the same case with all the parties, in some of the parties, a rather party-centric approach is seen where voters vote based on their loyalty with the party rather than the individual who is representing the said party.

The political parties in Pakistan are very poorly structured with aims and ambitions that are beyond the betterment of the country. However, keeping this aside and off the discussion, one main thing that these parties have to think well and plan smoothly is effective campaigns which are capable of making the direct and effectively approachable appeal to the voters to vote their respective candidates in the elections.

Candidate Centric approach of the voters

There are some very important things that all the parties fighting elections this year need to understand when the elections are around the corner. The basic and one of the most important thing that these parties and their management need to borne in mind is that the candidate-centric approach of voting does not apply in the whole country. In some parts of the country and among certain groups of voters, a very party-centric approach is followed by the voters. For instance, most of the voters of MQM follow and vote on the basis of party label while voting for MQM instead of looking at the individual who is representing MQM at that point in time.

This suggests that those candidates who have participated in these elections as the individual candidate have relatively lesser chances of winning. Though we are definitely implying that they can not win any seats but the history shows that they are are a little behind the race than those with a party label. For example in 2013, out of 2356 candidates who contested as independent candidates, only about 28 candidates were able to win seats in the National Assembly. This is a critical figure since it points out significantly that the quantity of people fit for winning seats simply in light of their free wellsprings o isn’t as high as is usually assumed.

In any case, applicants who are challenging the General Elections of Pakistan as free competitors yet with the foundation of being in a party as a featured individual from that party, subsequently have equal chances of winning a seat as another regular candidate with a party label. The entire game is about acknowledgment in case of individual candidates.

However, we have very strong hopes attached with these elections and we hope that the elections are executed very free and fair and all the voters get the chance to vote the one they think is the best for the country right now.

So vote and use your power!