CITRAL: Elections, whether they are the best method to form a government is another debate that has been discussed here . However, that general elections are being held in Pakistan on 8 Feb 2024, we need to look at the pros and cons of the election exercise in general and in particular as witnessed in Chitral.
Cons:
- The election process starting as early as two months before the polling day affects the daily routine of people who get involved directly or indirectly, actively or passively, in the schmozzle, thus compromising on their productivity, chasing a virtual frivolity.
- During the election campaign candidates move around making promises which they know and the voters too know they cannot fulfill, thus promoting lies.
- While the candidates move around making false promises, so do the voters make false promises to the candidates and the game of hypocrisy is at peak during these days.
- Friendships and relationships are put to test between the candidate and the voter, which often fail and cause life long wedge of ill feelings between the two.
Pros:
Despite all the cons mentioned above, election process does have some positive aspects such as
- It is at this time that the honesty of the candidate and the voter is put to test and the real social fiber of the society is exposed.
- Many candidates can identify their real well wishers and those only paying lip service, in other words the hypocrites.
- Candidates come to know of the venom the opposing rival has in their heart against him/her which otherwise would have remained unknown to him/her.
- Rich persons jump in the elections to shed some load of their money (often ill gotten) with the aim of buying votes, thus the voters benefit directly in the form of cash or kind. Even most big parties give hefty sums of money to their candidates to spend on elections which comes to the market and the people benefit from it in different forms.
- It provides respite to entertainment starved people, who during this time enjoy processions, public meetings and gossiping on their predictions about candidates and the election outcome etc.
.. CN report, 21 Jan 2024
3 thoughts on “Cons and Pros of the election process in Chitral”
Elections are around the corner. The voters don’t know anything about the election manifesto of the contesting political parties. I don’t think even the candidates themselves know about it. Although time is short but still live debates between the contesting candidates should be arranged by the election commission in each constituency. Otherwise elections will be just an exercise in vanity and will result in the same merry go round in the same old circle of no joy.
Both pros and cons of elections have been well described in the article.
The pros are five in number and hence larger than the cons which are four.