As the elections are very near and almost every political party, which is going to contest the polls has presented its manifesto. Though this practice is followed in every democratic country on the basis of a manifesto, people judge which political party would be better for their future.
But in Pakistan people don’t give much importance to the manifesto but here their criteria for casting a vote is quite different from other countries of the world. The voters in Pakistan have a peculiar mindset that they just follow their political affiliations. Even they do not watch the past performance of the leader belonging to their favorite party or previous government.
The Urdu idiom is to “show green gardens” that means to attract anyone with the false pledges. The manifestos of different political parties reflect the authenticity of this old saying. It has become the track record of each and every party just alluring the public through hollow claims but after winning the election they throw their manifesto under the carpet and forget their promises till the next elections.
As a matter of fact, the Pakistani nation is running after a hallucination for more than fifty years but even after being deceived by the political leaders, they again hand over the country to them for the next tenure. Now almost all the political parties are in the field with the same old traps for the people. Some are making tall statements to eradicate unemployment from the country if they will be given a chance, some are saying that after coming to power they will reduce inflation. Some leaders have a claim to provide free of cost electricity to the people on the usage of low consumption to a certain level. Several parties are asking votes from the public on the name Islam. Some are saying to bring justice to the homeland.
This time a new trend is seen in the manifestoes that each party is claiming to issue different kinds of cards including health card, women card, education card to the people after coming into power. This leaves an impression that Pakistan is a “bagger nation” which only lives on diverse types of stipends.
Every government that ruled the country in the past has borrowed heavy debts from international donor agencies, consortiums and states on the toughest conditions just to carry on their own luxuries comforts and pushed the entire nation into the hell of inflation as to repay these debts, the government had always put the extra burden on the people that resulted extreme price hike.
No party has solid suggestions to bring the derailed economy right on track or to improve the agricultural and industrial sector of the country. It is a funny anecdote that the political parties are repeating their promises to make Pakistan an Asian tiger, where a large number of people are even deprived of clean drinking water. Now before elections, the people should demand the political parties for their least basic rights such as quality education, good healthcare facilities and provision of justice.
The political parties should also realize the ground realities and ponder to resolve the problems of the people instead of playing jugglery tricks with them. As the common man of Pakistan is in the deep hot waters for a long time, they are exhausted due to the bogus claims and false promises of the politicians, which they have been making to them at the time of every election. Now the political parties should stop making fun of the public, to keep the people calm and prevent them from coming out on the roads to protest for their due demands.